Echoes of the Past
by DezoPenguin
Summary: The senior Enforcer wasn't looking forward to babysitting child prodigy Fate T. Harlaown on her first mission, but when the Lost Logia investigation proves to be more than it appeared, the child will have to learn rapidly if they hope to close the case
1. Chapter 1

Valentine Yaris tapped her foot impatiently.

People shied away from Yaris. If one was watching from an overhead view, say from a security camera, the flow of traffic through the spaceport concourse would show a distinctly open bubble around her. The tall woman, just shy of thirty with sharp, angular features, royal blue hair pulled back in a French braid, jet black uniform pressed so that the creases looked as if they could cut flesh, arms folded under her breasts, foot continuing to tap, definitely gave off a forbidding air.

She noticed this, of course. She'd been an Enforcer for thirteen years, after all. She'd have washed out or been killed long ago if she wasn't perceptive enough to recognize what was going on in her immediate environment. Yaris was well aware that she was spooking the crowd. She just didn't care. After all, she was annoyed enough about this assignment all on its own, and that a delay had erupted before the problem had even _started_, well, why should she hide her irritation?

Yaris could almost hear her husband's voice in her ear. _Patience, Val,_ he'd be saying. _It isn't her fault that you got stuck with this job._ Which was true. But it _was_ "her" fault that "she" was _late_!

The staccato beat of shoes on the tiled floor caught Yaris's attention. Moments later, a slight form burst from the crowd into the bubble of open space, running right up to her.

"I'm sorry I'm late, Ms. Yaris!" the girl began babbling—and _girl_ was the right word, too. Despite the black uniform identical to Yaris's own, the twintailed blonde with pink ribbons in her hair was nothing more than a child, closer to the age of Yaris's six-year-old than to adulthood. "There was a delay at the transfer point and—"

"Never mind the explanations; we're late enough," Yaris cut her off. Hurt flickered in eyes the dark red color of burgundy. "Our transit window will only be open for another five minutes; if we miss it we'll have to take a ship and end up a week behind schedule." Intersecting distances between worlds in both physical and dimensional space left it difficult to coordinate transportation; they were lucky that things were lining up so that a chain of dimensional shifts could "hop" them from world to world and let them travel from Midchilda to Administered World 43, Andorel, even though the worlds were actually quite far apart in dimensional space.

"Yes, ma'am."

_Ma'am! Gah!_

"Just call me 'Yaris' or 'Ms. Yaris' if you absolutely have to, but not 'ma'am.' We're supposed to be partners."

"Yes, Ms. Yaris."

"Good. Come on."

She spun on her heel and started walking down the concourse, the girl in her wake. Yaris _hated_ babysitting jobs! She had two younger brothers, a niece, a nephew, and a daughter of her own; she didn't need any more. She knew that her daughter was why she kept getting these assignments instead of having a permanent partner or aide; Yaris and her husband always wanted at least one parent to be home at all times for their child so she rotated to an HQ assignment when Marc was on one of his trips as an inter-world mergers-and-acquisitions legal specialist, and vice versa. She accepted that it wasn't appropriate for her to be assigned a full-time partner when she herself wasn't a full-time field Enforcer. Swing workers like herself got shuffled together with other available swing workers and were the first choice for breaking in newbies.

But a kid!

Yaris knew the whys and wherefores of it. Mage talents generally got into adult jobs at a younger age than the general population because training to control that talent started early. The average TSAB Navy or Ground Forces "grunt" was a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old cadet instead of an eighteen-year-old high-school graduate. The average rookie Enforcer was seventeen or eighteen after a few years of seasoning in the investigations branch of one service or another.

But then there were the prodigies. The unusual ones. Rare talents. Child geniuses. Kids whose personal circumstances had forced them to accept adult responsibilities far earlier than the cultural norm. According to her official file, Fate T. Harlaown was all three: born not of a mother and father but in a lab as an artificial-mage clone, gifted with S-rank magical potential, and forced to grow up fast, far faster than was sane or right. She'd been involved in the Jewel Seed incident (details classified), found not criminally responsible and given probationary contractor status only to immediately get sucked into the Book of Darkness incident (details classified Eyes Only). She'd been formally adopted by Admiral Lindy Harlaown, which sort of made sense, since Lindy's natural child Chrono was another prodigy (if more of intellect than power) and so she'd have experience dealing with the problems a talented child would face. Her probationary years had, in fact, been spent under the direct command of her family, which Yaris thought was a good idea under the circumstances.

That was all in the past, though. Now, Fate had passed her Enforcement Bureau qualification exam. She was going to have to carry the weight of adult responsibilities at eleven years old. Valentine Yaris, meanwhile, would get the job of shepherding her through her growing pains.

_She's passed the exam,_Yaris reminded herself. _She has nearly two years of genuine experience as a contractor. She's passed the AAA+ rank exam—_which was two more As than Yaris had in her own ranking. _She's dealt with cases involving the worst scenario, Lost Logia of the highest order._ These thoughts didn't help, though. She looked at Fate Harlaown and saw a girl who was almost—but not quite—old enough to babysit Yaris's daughter.

The chain of thought was cut off not by any revelation, but by their reaching the transit point. A uniformed attendant came forward to acknowledge their arrival.

"Enforcers Yaris and Harlaown, dimensional transport to Andorel," she told the young man while using her Storage Device to upload their ID and authorization data to the system.

"Yes, ma'am," he unconsciously echoed the child. When his console lit up, his eyes widened. "Get on the platform, please; your connection will only be available for a minute and a half!"

They walked through the security gate, which passed them through without trouble, and stepped onto the triangle-shaped platform, its floor like black glass that strobed with expanding rings of green light.

"Are you ready, Enforcers?"

"Yes," Yaris said.

"Um-hm," Fate agreed.

"Initializing dimensional connections..." About three seconds passed while the computers worked their magic, lining up links through dimensional space. "Chain established. Teleport on!" He touched a key, and the black glass surged with brilliant green light, runic bands surrounding the platform in mid-air.

"Bye-bye!" Harlaown said, and suddenly they were _gone_, Yaris's body feeling as if she'd been suddenly kicked in the stomach and spun in a circle until dizzy once, twice, through all eight separate steps in the linkage of dimensional shifts until with a brilliant flash in the light faded and the Enforcers found themselves standing on a platform identical to the one they'd left, but in completely different surroundings.

"**Dimensional transport complete. Welcome to Andorel, Administered World 43**," a mechanical voice announced while Yaris swayed, catching her balance while grinding her teeth together, hoping to keep her stomach contents down.

"Are you all right, Ms. Yaris?" Harlaown asked, her concern obvious. The girl, of course, didn't appear to have suffered any ill effects from the trip, which just seemed to make it worse.

"Fine," she managed to say. "Just a little jump-sick."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

Yaris shook her head and regretted it immediately as her vision swam. She swayed on her feet and had to take a step to regain her balance.

"Never mind. Let's go."

They left the transport area, logging their arrival in the system. Just beyond the secured area, a young man in his twenties with sandy hair and moustache wearing a crisp blue uniform with violet piping waited for them. He approached, extending a hand and offering a genial smile.

"Good morning, Enforcers! Welcome to Caledon City; I'm Adjutant Deacon Aztek, Andorel National Security Forces."

"Valentine Yaris," the blue-haired woman said, shaking his hand, "and Fate T. Harlaown, TSAB Enforcement Bureau. I gather you're our liaison here?"

"That's right."

He turned and shook Harlaown's hand, too. She returned his greeting with a very grave and serious look on her face.

"Although I don't believe that this case is one which requires the Bureau's involvement, I look forward to working with you to resolve this incident."

Yaris nodded. She wanted this man on their side, so she played nice, not an easy thing to do while she was still returning to normal after the transport.

"We both know the terms of the Charter," she sighed. "Any incident involving a Lost Logia automatically becomes the province of the Enforcers, even if it's otherwise something that the local authorities would have fully under control. Coming halfway across dimensional space just to step on people's toes isn't my favorite thing, either."

"I didn't mean—"

She smiled at him.

"Fact of the job. My favorite cases are the ones where we get tagged by TSAB investigators, which makes the jurisdictional tangle even more absurd. We're all just cogs in the machine, trying to do our best. So let's work together, get this case closed, and we can all be happy."

"Sounds good to me. I'll drive you to your hotel, we can get you checked in, and then we can start on the investigation?"

"That works. On the way, you can catch us up to speed on the case."

"You weren't briefed?" he said, surprised.

"We read the file." Yaris flicked a questioning gaze to Harlaown, who gave a hint of a nod. _Good_. _She did her homework._ "That's not exactly the same thing, as I'm sure you know, Adjutant."

"That's true enough. Come on. Can I get that for you, Enforcer Harlaown?" he offered, nodding at the girl's single suitcase, a wheeled carry-on-sized bag like Yaris's own.

"It's all right, Adjutant," she replied in her quiet, shy voice.

"Well, if you're sure. Let's go, then."

They left the transport area and headed out to the parking lot, where Aztek led them to a sleek green convertible sports car.

"Wow, is this yours?" Harlaown asked.

"Uh-huh. You like it? It's a Foucault Z14, MC0061 model." Aztek grinned.

"Cool!" She ran an appreciative hand over the car's flank while Aztek popped the trunk and they loaded their bags inside. He slammed the trunk shut and got behind the wheel, with Yaris taking the passenger seat and the child hopping into the rumble seat.

"Buckle up!" Aztek said, and after snapping his own four-point harness into place he gunned the motor and steered out of the parking lot. The spaceport in Caledon City, Yaris recalled from the guidebook notes she'd read in the briefing, was located on a man-made island in the middle of the city's central lake. Aztek steered the Foucault out onto a long causeway, framed by graceful white stone arches.

"So, what about this case?" Yaris asked.

"It seems to be a straightforward matter of theft," Aztek explained, "other than the nature of the stolen goods."

"Straightforward? Museum robberies don't happen every day."

"No, but they do happen. There's a thriving antiquities trade on this world, thanks to ten thousand years of history, and that means that there's a black market as well, despite our attempts to restrain it. But as I'm sure you're aware, the market for Andorelan antiquities is almost exclusively Andorelan. Except for artworks of intrinsic value due to their material content, offworld involvement in the trade is virtually unknown."

Yaris nodded.

"Yes, that's what our file indicated."

She turned to look at Aztek. Harlaown was leaning forward between the front seats,listening, but with her hair streaming out in the airflow from the open convertible she was obviously enjoying the ride for its own sake.

"But this isn't just a garden-variety antiquity. The stolen object was a Lost Logia, an active magical relic from a lost civilization."

"Yes, Legaria, which most people thought was a myth up until two hundred years ago. Still and all, this is strictly a C-rated Lost Logia, unique in its origin but by no means some piece of world-destroying technology. Your TSAB would have taken it into custody right away if that was the case."

"The Bureau's Lost Logia dossier said that the item was a kind of memory recorder," Harlaown spoke up, "which stored the memories and experiences of its creator or user. Is that right, Adjutant?"

"So far as I know. If you want details, you'll have to ask the professors at the museum."

"That would be the Var Amnis Provincial Museum of Ancient History?" Yaris asked.

"Right. It's attached to Var Amnis University—my alma mater, in fact. The province we're in now, that's Var Amnis," he added unnecessarily. "Actually, this region was where Legaria was supposed to have been located, which was a big reason why it was picked as the site of the worldwide confederation capital." He took one hand off the wheel to rub sheepishly at the back of his head. "I guess you don't really care about that stuff, do you?"

Yaris allowed him another smile. Rather than carping, she just said, "I'll consider it local color. After all, that's why we have a liaison, to help us tell what's important to the case and what's part of the background that seems unusual to us but any Andorelan can see for what it is. Now about the theft—the report suggested a professional job?"

Aztek nodded.

"That's right. The security system was deactivated, which would have taken either knowledge of the passcodes or very skilled computer operation to bypass. Either option indicates a skilled, professional operation. Entry was via one of the doors; with alarms and surveillance deactivated that made more sense than forcible entry."

"There were only three on-duty guards, if I remember correctly? One in the security office and two on foot patrol?"

"That's right. The museum is large and it would be no problem for the thieves to stay out of the way of the watchmen. Even amateurs could do it, let alone professionals, particularly if they knew the routine. And it was a targeted run with only one specific goal: they took the Lost Logia and nothing else. The case was smashed, which would have triggered an alarm but, again, the alarms were off. And, of course, the thieves weren't obliging enough to leave any fingerprints, DNA samples, or the like that we could find. Of course, the general public goes through the museum in pretty large numbers anyway, so we had what you might call a lousy signal to noise ratio with regard to that kind of thing."

The car exited the causeway onto the mainland and Aztek began to navigate through city streets that were narrow and winding, conforming to the contours of the land instead of cutting through them. The buildings were low and sprawling, built of great blocks of reddish-gray stone with green tile roofs and steep, arching domes. Glass-and-steel spires, the hallmark of a modern city, were conspicuous by their absence, and the overall impression Yaris got was that Caledon City was a place of thriving history and antiquity, built when hand-carts and carriages drawn by animals rather than machines were the vehicles passing along its roads. It was a far cry from Cranagan, where even the abandoned sectors were abandoned from modern-era strife and history was only an afterthought in Midchilda's relentless drive for the future.

"Does the Lost Logia change forms like our Devices do?" Harlaown asked.

"Not so far as anyone knows. It's always appeared as a kind of coronet, bronze in color, with a large green jewel that fits over the center of the forehead. It apparently has to be worn to be used. The materials look like bronze and emerald, as I said, but the molecular structures of both don't match up, so they're actually something unknown."

Aztek's driving through the narrow streets was definitely not defensive. The truth was, in a nest of roads not designed for reasonable traffic flow, opportunities had to be seized firmly before they vanished, and he darted from lane to lane, squeezing into gaps Yaris would barely believe could hold them, or in some cases which had only begun to form when Aztek made his move. The Focault showed off most of its tricks: almost instantaneous acceleration and braking, a turning circle tighter than she'd have thought the wheelbase would allow, and pinpoint maneuverability. Harlaown soaked it all up with wide-eyed glee, as Aztek put the car through its gyrations without changing expression or breaking his narrative about the case.

"Let me guess, you put yourself through the police academy as a taxi driver?" Yaris muttered.

"Security Forces vehicular pursuit training courses, actually," he said with a grin as he stole a parking space before a stately hotel building from, ironically enough, a bright orange taxicab. The driver offered a few comments on Aztek's family lineage that made Harlaown's ears turn red. "Why don't you two get checked in, and then we'll talk about your next stop. I've got a suggestion you might think is acceptable."

"All right. You don't mind waiting?"

"Nah. It'll give me a chance to remind this guy it's not a good idea to use that kind of language in front of a kid...particularly to a cop."

~X X X~

He felt as if he was swimming. The air itself seemed thick and clinging, taking effort for him to push through. Extending a hand seemed to part it like moving through water, the movement breaking the images into fragments.

But fragments of what, exactly? Even when stillness resumed and the rippling, gelid light settled once more into place the images were blurred, confusing. Swimming described it well, for he seemed to be able to peer up through tables and chairs, the broad-based brass lamp with its engraved sides and the low, squat coffee table strewn with trinkets, through the walls themselves to what lay beyond, like he was at the bottom of a pool looking out at the crowds clustered around the sides.

Only, instead of the blurred faces of people, what he saw were more walls, not white paint over plaster but cool gray stone, pierced by narrow stained-glass windows before which hung paintings, oils in gilt frames. The subjects of the paintings were blurry, out of focus, obscured by the maddening images that hovered in front of him. He reached out, trying to clear the way, and his hand pushed _through_ a wooden-backed chair. Or did it? Did it, instead, knock the chair aside, sending it toppling to the carpeted floor, striking an ornamental vase full of flowers and breaking—but no, the rungs of the chair parted the vase, sending it shimmering, rippling into a thousand fragments that sprang apart, then came back together again like a reflected image in a pond. Or was the chair the reflection instead?

Only one thought seemed clear to him.

_This is not where I need to be._

There was a holographic image on display on an end table. It, of all the things in the room, seemed clear and sharp, the face of a woman with a soft smile and laughing eyes, with silver-gray hair _angular features as sharp and clever as a fox's_ shot through with strands of red _raven black with a single curl of blonde_. Longing swelled in his heart as he looked at her _them_ and a near-unbearable sense of loss swelled.

This was not where he needed to be.

He looked forward, pushing through the congealed thickness of the air to the _high, arched double _door and forced his way out, making his way down a short _long and winding_ corridor to the _wrought-iron spiral_ elevator _staircase_. Music brushed his ears, a relaxing _wail of strings and eerie, droning pipes_ symphony piece as he steadily descended through the shifting light.


	2. Chapter 2

"You're sure you ladies don't need to rest after traveling?" Aztek said when the Enforcers rejoined him after checking into the hotel. Yaris wasn't sure if he was being polite or obtuse.

"Adjutant, our travel consisted of standing in place for less than a minute during dimensional transport. It took longer to get out of the spaceport."

"Yeah, I guess you have a point there."

She ignored her own momentary reaction to the transport; the ill effects had faded in under twenty minutes, although Aztek's driving had brought back echoes of them. She wondered if she'd be better off putting on her Barrier Jacket to absorb the stress of the high-G maneuvers.

"Anyway, you said that you had a suggestion for our next step?"

Aztek nodded.

"Right. Now, you know that the Security Forces have already completed the initial investigation—crime scene examination, forensic tests, witness interviews, and so on."

"Uh-huh." In the interest of cooperation, Yaris chose not to mention that the locals had significantly exceeded their responsibilities before calling in the Enforcement Bureau. After all, they were here now, working together, so there was no point in complaining about how they got there.

"Well, one of the major players in the illegal antiquities trade is based here in Caledon City. I'd set up a meeting to talk with him, and I thought that the two of you might want to join me. He may have been able to hang out in the gray areas of local law, but offworld heat is another kettle of fish entirely. If he wasn't involved in swiping the Circlet of Thessidor, then he should be able to find out who was."

It was the first time any of them had used the name of the missing Lost Logia. It hadn't been intentional, but even so breaking that curious silence had an effect on them all. Even Harlaown apparently sensed it, a shadow seeming to flicker across her deep red eyes. Lost Logia were like that, these ghosts of the fallen pasts. When they were involved even simple cases of theft and sale for profit got complicated.

"So who is this man?" Yaris pushed past the moment, as she always did. "What do we need to know about him?"

"His name is Nicolas Zil. Ostensibly, he's a restauranteur. The Chateau d'Argent is, in fact, one of the most well-known and highly-regarded restaurants in the city."

"Five-star cuisine, eh?"

"Oh, yeah. He does business out of his private rooms above the restaurant, and he's well known as a collector of antiquities, particularly Legarian rarities. I'm sure that won't surprise you, since one of the best ways to conceal illegal business is to do it within a legal one, clouding the picture."

"If he had a fancy for Legarian artifacts, then is it likely he commissioned the theft?"

"It's possible. We're certain that his private collection is significantly larger than his 'public' private collection, if you know what I mean, and he's brokered deals that weren't for his own purchases as well."

"Why hasn't this man been arrested?" Harlaown asked.

"Knowing he's a crook and being able to prove it in court are different things, Enforcer. That's particularly true when a man has powerful friends as Zil does. That means we can't act without all the Is dotted and Ts crossed, probable cause obtained for every action and no allegations without solid evidence backing them up. There's no chance of acting on suspicion alone and getting away with anything. Lost Logia, though, that's a little different."

"You're looking forward to this, aren't you?" Yaris said slyly.

Aztek affected a face of mock innocence.

"Me? Whyever could you think so?"

"Oh, I don't know. But, if I were a law officer who's had to handle a suspected criminal with kid gloves and the opportunity came to bring him before TSAB authorities who haven't the slightest interest in how big a player he might be on this one single world and a mandate to make very sure that he isn't playing around with restricted magical technology, I'd probably be grinning from ear to ear at the idea."

Aztek's smile slowly widened until it matched Yaris's description.

"You know, there just might be something to that." He coded on the car's engine and shot out into traffic.

~X X X~

More than one person looked up when the three uniformed officers walked into the Chateau d'Argent's elaborately furnished lobby. Nicolas Zil's love for antiquities was plain to see, as four pillar-shaped display cases showed off artifacts: an elaborate mask of what looked like porcelain, an ornate double-bladed dagger, and other items. Along one wall a tapestry of a battle scene was covered by glass, opposite the maitre'd's stand. Yaris tried to keep her rubbernecking to a minimum, letting her eyes take in the décor without moving her head as she followed Aztek's crisp stride towards the host.

"Good afternoon, Adjutant," the maitre'd said, his glance flicking over the rank insignia on Aztek's collar. "How may I help you?"

"Deacon Aztek, National Security Forces. My associates and I have an appointment with Mr. Zil."

The host looked surprised at that; he touched a button on his podium and a small screen, no more than three by five inches, appeared.

"Pardon me, but I have an Adjutant Aztek and companions to see Mr. Zil?"

"I'll be there immediately," replied whomever was on the other side of the screen.

"Very well." The host raised his eyes to Aztek and said said, "It will just be a moment, Adjutant, ladies."

The "moment" did in fact take no more than forty seconds before the lobby door opened and a slender, dark-skinned man with a shaved (or just bald) head and very sharp, angular features right down to the line of his eyebrows approached.

"Adjutant Aztek. We weren't expecting such an...imposingly official presence."

Yaris stepped up next to her local aide.

"Enforcers Yaris and Harlaown, Time-Space Administration Bureau," she said crisply, her tone matching the mood Aztek seemed to think would be the most effective approach with Zil. "Are you Mr. Zil?"

"No, Enforcer," the dark man said, momentarily taken aback.

"Then we'll save the explanations for when we see him. I don't like to repeat myself."

He glanced back and forth between Aztek and herself, the pause before his response long enough that Yaris wondered if he was a mage and communicating telepathically with his boss. If he was, he must have received a positive answer.

"Of course. Please come with me."

He led them from the lobby down a hall paneled in dark wood. Through doors on both sides Yaris could see dining rooms, light glittering off crystal, brightly polished silver, and snowy linens, and caught further hints of opulent furnishings. She wasn't familiar enough with Andorelan history to know the culture or time period being evoked, but it gave her the feeling of a post-medieval aristocratic luxury, of a time when birth meant privilege and entitlement and technology was sufficient to support it. At the end of the hall he touched a button and a section of paneling slid aside to reveal an elevator, the car outfitted in brass and more dark wood. Yaris felt a soft buzz at the back of her neck as they entered, her Device letting her know that they were being scanned for weapons.

The elevator ascended smoothly and their escort brought the three law officers to a large conference room. The furnishings here were equally elaborate, and the walls were pierced with glass cases, each bearing further antiquities. Was it because Zil liked to be surrounded by the objects of his passion, or because he was trying to show off, present an image to the people he met with?

Looking at the man who awaited them, Yaris had to conclude that it was the latter. Zil was a thick-bodied, well-fed man wearing an immaculate white suit, plum-colored shirt and lilac tie. His brown hair was a rich chocolate color with lighter highlights and he had a neatly trimmed beard into which he'd allowed a little gray, just enough to suggest experience and wisdom without a loss of strength and virility. He had short-fingered plowman's hands from which three rings glittered, and one ear was pierced for a diamond stud.

"Adjutant, Enforcers, good afternoon!" he greeted them heartily, waving his hand, but did not get up from his seat at the head of the long table—a classic power move. Yaris wasn't impressed; she'd seen it all before. "Come, join me, and tell me what I can do for such eminent guests." He gestured at the table.

The three of them approached, not responding to his hail-fellow-well-met heartiness. The point was to present a front of stern, overwhelming officialdom, although Yaris couldn't help but think that with Harlaown in tow they looked more like a family playing dress-up than a law enforcement squad.

Since beating around the bush would only undermine the impression they wanted to make, Yaris came out and said, "Adjutant Aztek tells up that you have extensive knowledge of the market for Legarian artifacts."

"You do me too much honor. I have a collector's instinct, true, but nothing more."

She gestured at the walls.

"More than just an ordinary collector, I'd say."

"Trinkets. Mere baubles to whet the appetite. The time period is fascinating to me: a technologically advanced lost civilization existing on our own world long before Belkans or Midchildans sailed the dimensional sea. It's inspiring to think of. The artifacts I collect are not priceless treasures of gems and precious metal; their value lies in that they offer a window into the far-off past, into the lives of people now long passed on."

"Then how much," Aztek said, "would an artifact that _literally_ gave you a window into that past be worth to you?"

"I'm afraid that I don't follow."

"The Circlet of Thessidor has been stolen from the Provincial Museum."

"The Circ—" Zil began, and avarice flickered in the depths of his deep brown eyes. "Incredible. But why do you come to me?"

"You know the market," Aztek said. "If the Circlet was being offered for sale, you would know."

"Surely you are not asserting that you believe I would traffic in stolen goods."

"You know as well as I do that in the antiquities trade, provenance is often forged, winked at, or ignored entirely."

"You are being extremely insulting, Adjutant. I assure you that my ownership of every item you see here is backed up with complete and valid documentation."

"And the ones we _don't_ see, in your private collection?" Yaris said, her voice somewhere between a drawl and a sneer. Zil puffed up with false indignation—or heck, maybe it was real; some of these crime-boss guys were touchy about being _accused_ of things even when they were guilty, as a matter of face and ego. She cut him off, leaning forward, palms on the conference table so her face was no more than six inches from his, making his seated posture one of weakness instead of strength. "Maybe you don't quite grasp the situation. This isn't about what you may or may not have bought through legal, dubious, or illegal channels in the past. This is about a stolen _Lost Logia_. Do I have to spell out for you what that means?"

"Why you little—" Zil's urbane polish vanished as he shot to his feet, knocking his chair back. "I'll have you know—"

"Don't push me on this. I'm not in a mood to listen to a two-bit hustler—" she shot back, watching Zil's face turn purple, but she too was interrupted, by a voice from behind her carrying the telltale metallic echo of a Device.

**"Get set."**

Yaris, Zil, and Aztek all turned towards Harlaown. The triangular pendant around the girl's neck flashed and in an instant her uniform was gone, replaced by a Barrier Jacket of black tunic and tights—very similar, actually, to her Enforcer uniform—and high-collared white cape. Her black-gloved right hand closed around the shaft of a short-handled Device with a head like a blunt-edged axe blade. The yellow crystal in the axe-head flashed, and the metallic voice spoke again.

**"Plasma Lancer."**

Six spears of yellow energy blasted off in multiple directions, crashing into the walls between the display cases and smashing open hidden panels. From behind the panels, one man toppled, unconscious, a heavy rifle-like weapon tumbling out of his slack hands, while five goons charged. Blasts of magical energy shot into the room from gaps in what had to be two more panels at the end of the room, but were stopped by the glittering yellow dome that sprang up around the Enforcers and Aztek. **"Defenser Plus"** echoed in the air, confirming the source of the barrier.

Yaris said something not precisely suitable for an eleven-year-old's ears, but since Harlaown had started this mess her partner figured she could deal. She assumed her own Barrier Jacket, neck-to-front black with a crimson cape and tiny halo hat, her blue hair coming loose from the braid and spilling down her back. She plucked her own Device's card-shaped standby form from her pocket and converted Star Sentry into its combat-ready staff form.

The five thugs she could see appeared to include three men and a woman with typical rod-type Storage Devices, along with another weapon-user. Even as Yaris was assessing the situation, Harlaown was already moving to resolve it.

**"Haken Form."**

The axe-head tipped back, sprouting a scythelike blade. The child sprang towards the two attackers on her side of the table. A sweep of her scythe cut down the defenseless non-mage, and in a motion so quick Yaris could barely track she bought it back around towards the second man.

**"Haken Slash."**

Sparks flew as the enhanced attack tore through the mage's rudimentary Barrier Jacket, overwhelming his defenses and blasting him unconscious with magic damage. Yaris whipped Star Sentry towards the goons on the other side.

**"Plasma Shock."**

A bright explosion of blue-white light staggered two of them, utterly disrupting their attempts to cast spells. The third pointed his Device at Harlaown. "Strike Fire!" he yelped, and four shooting-magic "bullets" sprang from the rod's tip. Two missed outright, shattering a display case, one impacted the skirt of her Barrier Jacket without apparent effect, and the last she actually swatted away with her scythe.

Zil had tried to make a run for it the instant the firefight broke out, but Aztek had intercepted him, tackling him to the carpet. They rolled over and over, grappling and punching while the Enforcers dealt with the armed opposition.

More blasts came from the end of the room, but Yaris was ready for them, raising her Mystic Defender barrier spell to protect herself. The force of the impacts was negligible; she doubted the opposition would have qualified as better than C-rank.

"Harlaown, get those two behind the wall!" she ordered, then pointed at the mage who'd launched the Strike Fire spell.

**"Pulse Laser,"** Star Sentry recited.

**"Haken Saber,"** Harlaown's Device said almost at once.

Four blue-white orbs shimmered into place around Yaris's target, then blasted into him, dropping him unconscious. Simultaneously, Harlaown's scythe-blade launched into a spinning arc off the Device and blew apart the protective panel, knocking out the man behind it. Her Device switched back to its original form, she pointed it at the remaining panel, and a Mid-style rune glowed beneath her feet.

"Plasma Rage!" she cried, and a blast of lightning blew the better part of the wall apart. Impressed despite herself, Yaris Plasma Shocked her last two enemies into unconsciousness. That just left Aztek, who was getting the worst of it with Zil. The man in the white suit had Aztek pinned down, one hand gripping his throat while the other rose and fell like a triphammer, methodically beating the Adjutant down.

It would have been easy for either Enforcer to blast the enraged Zil, but Yaris decided it would be polite to give Aztek the opportunity.

**"Iron Tiger,"** Star Sentry intoned. Blue light swelled around Aztek, enhancing his physical strength like a Belkan knight's magic did. He knocked Zil's arm away, then pumped his fist up into the restauranteur's face. Zil's head snapped back, blood spraying from a broken nose, and a second punch toppled him off Aztek onto his side on the rug. Aztek pushed himself to his feet, rubbing his jaw and panting heavily, while Yaris surveyed the sprawled bodies and the damage to the room. She turned her gaze to Harlaown, skewering the child with her eyes.

"We," she announced, "are going to have a long talk about this."

~X X X~

The lobby was awash in brilliant sunlight spilling through floor-to-ceiling windows _descending in streams through ornately-wrought, circular skylights._ He stumbled a bit as he came out of the _staircase_ elevator, as if his feet wouldn't quite go where he wanted them to. The images before his eyes were shifting and confusing. Fanciful patterns in green, scarlet, and gold writhed into existence in the beige wall-to-wall lobby carpeting, taking shape just long enough to tease at his memory for the meaning of their symbolism, then vanishing again, swallowed by the drab fibers. An ornamental wooden table set with a decanter and glasses shimmered as a cart rolled through it, pushed by a white-aproned housekeeper.

He swayed as he walked forward, trying not to set his feet on the eerily erupting griffons and hydras, giving his advance the disconcerting aspect of a strange, patternless dance, _putting him in mind of a drunken courtier who'd attempted a quadrille, only to miss steps and ricochet to and fro as he bumped into dancer after dancer until he was approached by—_

"Excuse me, sir, but do you need help?" gingerly asked a young man in livery, the _gold and green tabard of a page_ red jacket and cap with gold braid of a doorman, on his first _first_ week _week_ on the job.

_Memory becoming reality, as he recalled the servant using those same words to the dancer?_ Was he the dancer? _Is it memory? Or what is happening now? But no, just a memory; as I resemble that man, so does the response._

Ahead of him a _woman in a scarlet gown passed through _a closed glass door, the panel seeming to fly apart in a thousand fragments _open archway_ that came back together as she passed on. His head pounded at the sight, and he _shook off the grasping hand of the interloper_ whose offered kindness only served to _irritate him the more_ as it provided one more discordant note in the haze of his perception.

"Let me go!" he snapped, more harshly than the boy deserved _for he had only been trying to be of service._ He swayed forward, then set his jaw and _marched straight for the archway_ door, heedless of the way the air seemed to stream and flow around him. He _collided heavily with a barrier he could not see_ fumbled for the door handle for a long moment as if he couldn't quite grasp what he was supposed to do with it, the knowledge slipping from his grasp until at last the door gave way before him and _he staggered out into the burning sunlight_.


	3. Chapter 3

Adjutant Aztek judiciously left the Enforcers in the wreckage of the conference room, ostensibly to "secure the scene" while he called for backup, prisoner transport, and forensics but in reality to give them privacy.

"I know the strategy was supposed to be that we come in like the interdimensional heavies who weren't impressed by Zil's big fish in a small pond routine, but that doesn't mean initiating magical combat!" Yaris barked at the girl. Harlaown flinched, but spoke up right away in her own defense.

"Bardiche detected the guards when we came in, so we kept them monitored."

"Bardiche is your Device?"

**"Yes, ma'am."**

"I said not to call me ma'am."

**"Yes, sir."**

"Let me guess—an Intelligent Device? I've never known a Storage Device to be a smart-ass." _Of course_ Little Miss AAA+ would have her very own Intelligent Device.

"That's right, Ms. Yaris; his full name is Bardiche Assault. When Mr. Zil got up out of his seat, we detected the guards powering weapons and the mages gathering power for spells, so we counterstruck."

Yaris groaned.

"Let me guess: thus far your experience has been in working out that inflated magical ranking on field recon and tactical ops missions, right? This is your first time questioning a suspect?"

Harlaown's lip quivered.

"Yes, Ms. Yaris."

"I thought so. Gah! When will they stop sending out half-trained recruits just because they can do magic!"

"I'm not half-trained, Ms. Yaris. I'm ranked in the Bureau's top fifty close-combat specialists and passed my Enforcement Bureau field exam fairly!"

"Which has _nothing_ to do with _investigating a crime!_ You can be the biggest, baddest air combat mage in the whole Bureau, but if you can't find what you're supposed to fight, what good does it do?"

Harlaown opened her mouth to reply, then shut it again.

"Getting it, aren't you? Your response was fine—for a combat mission in a hot zone. Find the enemy and zap them before they zap you. But we weren't _here_ to fight enemies, we were here for _information_. Do you think I didn't know Zil had his thug squad watching us? He's a crime boss—they don't go _anywhere_ without guards. And if they'd been blessedly stupid enough to fire first, we'd have had him by the short hairs—er, had him where we wanted him," she belatedly corrected her metaphor for language. "Assault on an Enforcer is a serious charge. We'd have had probable cause to search this place from top to bottom, confiscate any illegal antiquities, explore his business records, arrest his people, close down his restaurant, and generally make his life miserable unless he gave us precise, complete, and exact information about our Lost Logia."

She let out her breath in a woosh.

"Except that, of course, my partner got trigger-happy and blew up the joint. Now not only do we have no charges to threaten Zil with, but we'll be lucky if _you_ don't end up getting in trouble over this."

"I...I'm sorry...I just..."

Yaris's voice softened.

"You just wanted to do well on your first mission, so when you detected the goon squad gearing up, you stepped in to protect your partner and impress me with your magical skills, right?"

"Mm-hm," Harlaown said, nodding.

"Well, I'm glad to have someone of your talents watching my back, but as an Enforcer you have to keep in mind what your objective is."

"Mm-hm," Harlaown repeated. _Are those tears? Damn it, they are; she's crying._

Yaris was torn between wanting to hug the girl and scream because this was the reason she hated babysitting for kid prodigies, but she settled on neither. "Hey, pull it together, Harlaown. We've got a job to do here, right?"

The blonde nodded, then raised her head, a look of fierce determination on her face that was so cute Yaris would have laughed if it hadn't been for the overall situation.

"Yes, Ms. Yaris!"

"Good. Now, I presume you have the Circlet's magical wavelength stored in Bardiche from the Bureau's Lost Logia archives?"

"Yes; it was included with the briefing package."

"All right; we're going to do a sweep of this building for it." Given the relative lack of strength of the Lost Logia and all the background magical "noise" from the world's technology she figured even Harlaown would have a detection radius of maybe twenty feet. "If we're blindingly lucky, Zil either commissioned the theft or bought it afterwards and it's on-site."

"W-what do we do if it's not here?" the girl asked hesitantly.

"I'm hoping I'll have thought of something by then."

~X X X~

It wasn't there, and if Nicolas Zil was to be believed, he hadn't heard a thing about it being offered for sale. He admitted to having put out some feelers himself, but his black-market contacts had come back with blank looks and head-scratching. Not only was nobody selling, but there weren't even any credible rumors about who'd commissioned the theft or pulled the actual job.

They'd eventually gotten this information at nine-thirty at night with the cooperation of Zil's legal advocate. A full sweep of the building had turned up plenty by way of "dubiously provenanced" Legarian artifacts and data records of other illegal operations, so it was clear that he was looking at substantial prison time if the Enforcers were able to make a charge of "threatening a TSAB officer in the pursuit of her duties" stick on account of the guards readying for combat. Even if the charge didn't hold up and the lack of probable cause for the post-fight search negated all the evidence found, it would still take time and effort to slog through the legal battle. Not surprisingly, he'd chosen to talk freely instead of fight it out. Why work to hold back something that he didn't apparently have any guilty knowledge of in the first place?

_Apparently_ was, of course, the key word there, but examination of his communications terminals and computers all bore out that suggestion; despite the evidence of numerous other illegal activities, he didn't seem to be involved in the matter of the stolen Lost Logia. Indeed, the computer analysis team found a number of messages where he'd sought information only to receive nothing in return, and similar contacts where other people had asked him the same questions and gotten the same answers.

It all pointed to one conclusion: the Circlet of Thessidor had not been offered for auction, and nobody in the underground of the Andorelan illegal-antiquities trade had anything resembling a serious rumor even of who might have pulled off the theft, let alone on whose behalf.

"I'm sorry," Yaris told Aztek as they watched Zil leave the NSF HQ with his attorney and the bald assistant. A luxury car, a dull gold in color that looked silver in the artificial lights, was waiting for him. "I know you'd have liked to put him away."

"Ah, it doesn't matter," he waved it off. "Even negative information is worth something, right? And hey, at least I got to knock the smug bastard cold, thanks to your spell. That was definitely worth it."

"He won't take that well," Yaris observed. "A man like that, his ego will insist on getting back at you."

"Let him try. He doesn't realize it yet, but he's already seen the beginning of the end of his criminal career. Thanks to today's raid, we have more data about his operations than we've ever had—people, places, methods of contact, financial institutions involved, account numbers, the works. Sure, we can't charge him with anything we found out today, but we can put surveillance on targets, flag accounts for activity, set up stings using inside information, and build an ironclad case."

"You'll need probable cause for that, won't you? Truth be told, we'd need a _really_ friendly judge to agree that Harlaown had any justification, and if Zil's got the pull you say he has, you won't get that in a local hearing."

"True enough, but I won't need it."

Yaris blinked in confusion. "How do you figure? If she didn't have a valid reason to open fire, then everything you learned is the fruit of the poisonous tree, and—" She broke off, then grinned as the light dawned. "But no, that's not right, is it? Zil _took the deal_, which legitimizes the collected evidence, not as the basis for charges in and of itself which would be forbidden under the deal, but so far as your department's right to _have_ it goes, and to use it to provide intel for investigation into _future_ criminal activities."

"That's it exactly," Aztek said, his smile still firmly in place.

"Glad we could be of service."

"Yeah, except that it's supposed to be the other way around, us helping you find that Lost Logia, not you helping us us clean up our local cases."

Yaris stifled a yawn.

"Well, false leads and dead ends happen, and at least this one wasn't a complete waste of time. We'll just have to take it from the top in the morning. Most of the people we want to talk to are here, and it's probably past the kid's bedtime, anyway."

"Do you want a ride to your hotel?"

"That's okay. You've got a lot of stuff still to work on here with your end of the case."

The Enforcers took a cab back to their hotel. Despite the hotel's stately exterior, the accommodations were no different than those Yaris had had on dozens of missions. The room was a generic family-type one with two beds, clean and comfortable with no frills, cream and beige the predominant hues.

"You can take the first shower if you like," she told Harlaown and kicked off her shoes. _I should have stayed in my Barrier Jacket a few extra hours,_ she told herself. _These uniform pumps are killing my feet._

"All right. Thank you."

While the girl vanished into the bathroom, Yaris eyeballed the automatic coffee pot, set it for "boiling water," and made herself a cup of tea. As expected, it was a local, generic brand and the disposable foam cup was hardly designed to bring out the best taste, but she'd never been a snob about such things, anyway. She carried it over to the room's card table, sat down in one of the chairs, and had Star Sentry open up the official case file so she could log the day's reports as the senior officer. Most of it was easy enough; the only tricky part was trying to figure out how to characterize Harlaown's little outburst of magical enthusiasm.

"Hmm...okay, record dictation: Subject Zil displayed a hostile posture by stationing armed and mage-talented employees in an attempt to secretly cover the meeting location. When the conversation between Enforcer Yaris and subject became heated, said employees prepared to ambush Enforcers and local liaison by arming weapons and linking mana. Enforcer Harlaown sensed—correction: detected—ambush preparations and responded with non-lethal force to subdue the ambushers. Cease dictation." She read the text over, making sure it was correct and looked in print the way it had in her head. "Yeah, that's good." She reached for her tea.

"Why didn't you enter my mistake in the report?"

Another two seconds and she'd have had tea in her mouth to do a classic spit-take.

"Gah! You walk like a cat!"

Harlaown was done with the bathroom, now wearing a thin white hotel robe over an ankle-length satiny black nightgown. Fuzzy slippers provided for her near-silent steps.

"I'm sorry..."

"It's okay," Yaris waved it off. "Anyway, the reason I didn't put a reprimand in the report is that I'm supposed to be teaching you the ins and outs of being an Enforcer. You made a mistake and you get called on it. Hopefully you'll know better next time. If you'd done something malicious or dangerous or terminally stupid, yeah, I'd write you up, but you don't deserve a black mark on your file for not knowing something nobody had ever bothered to teach you."

Harlaown's face lit up.

"Really?"

"Really." Yaris set down her teacup. "Look, we haven't even had time to properly introduce ourselves yet. I'm Valentine Yaris. My Storage Device is Star Sentry."

"Fate T. Harlaown, and Intelligent Device Bardiche. It's a pleasure to be working with you, Ms. Yaris."

"Nice to meet you, too."

"Even so, I'm really sorry. You spent hours cleaning up after my mistake, and we didn't learn anything from Zil."

Yaris shook her head.

"Not exactly. We learned with a pretty high level of confidence that the Andorelan illegal-antiquities market isn't involved in the theft. So Adjutant Aztek's first assumption was wrong. I ran with his idea today because his people had already put in the initial grunt work and his conclusion seemed reasonable from what we knew. Tomorrow, though, we take it from the top, and sort out which of three theories might apply—unless we go completely off the rails."

"Three theories?"

She pulled out the chair next to her.

"Sit down."

Harlaown sat.

"Okay, so we know the Circlet was stolen, but not for the Andorelan market. So: theory one, it was sold for the dimensional market, offworld, where Zil and his kind don't have dealings."

The child frowned.

"Is that very likely?" she asked. "The way you and Mr. Aztek were talking, it didn't sound like the Circlet of Thessidor would be very important to people not from Andorel."

"I agree, it's not likely at all. See, now you're thinking like an investigator."

"Thinking...like...?"

"It's not that different from combat, really. You observe all the available information; sort out what's truth, what's innuendo, and what's just noise; draw conclusions; and take action. For example, you wear black underwear, you have a black nightgown, your Barrier Jacket is black, gold, and white, and in your open suitcase over there I can see that your causal clothes are a black T-shirt and white shorts. Yet you had pink ribbons in your hair today that don't go with anything you wear, so I'm guessing they mean something to you."

Harlaown blushed and looked away.

"They...were a gift from my best friend Nanoha. When we first became friends, we were going to be away from each other for several months, so we traded ribbons. I...wore them for good luck...since it's my first mission as an Enforcer," she finished in a very small voice, almost inaudible.

Fate's confession put Yaris in mind of some of the things her daughter did, the kind of things that made her want to squeal "So cute!" Yaris had a feeling that Fate wouldn't appreciate that reaction very much.

"I see; that explains that. But do you understand what I mean by thinking like an investigator?"

"I think that I do...although I'm not sure I'll be able to do very well at it right away."

"The tests show you have the aptitude for it; otherwise they'd have sent you to another TSAB branch. The most important thing is just to remember what you're doing at all times. When you keep in mind what you're trying to accomplish, then you aren't likely to get too far out of line or distracted by trivia."

"I'll try, Ms. Yaris."

"Can't ask for more than that." She swallowed the last of her tea, then leaned back and stretched, hearing her joints pop. "I'm too young to be getting too old for this. Hey, speaking of which, do you mind if I kind of ask a personal question?"

"Um, I guess not..."

"Why did you decide to become an Enforcer? I've seen your record, at least the non-classified part of it, and I'd have thought that after what you've experienced you'd have seen enough Lost Logia for a lifetime."

Fate shook her head.

"That's _why_ I want to be an Enforcer. I've seen for myself the kind of pain and grief that Lost Logia can cause people, so I want to try and keep anyone else from going through that."

"A brave goal."

"You don't have to make fun of me," Fate said, pouting a little.

"I wasn't. It's what we stand for as Enforcers, why the TSAB itself exists. Time and again we've seen it throughout history, people, cultures, even entire worlds obliterated because of the hunger for power. We work to stop these tragedies from repeating themselves, either due to rogue elements with an agenda or just because of the nature of some technology, that it can't _be_ used safely. That's pretty much what all of us who put on this uniform are fighting for."

"Ms. Yaris—"

She held up a hand.

"Make it Val. I mean, we're supposed to be partners, right?"

Fate's face lit up and she nodded firmly.

"Mmn!"

~X X X~

Darkness sheathed the sky above in its velvet grasp, yet even this could not bring him peace. _Stars gleamed, yet clouded, obscured, as if their light had to fight through shifting, twisting darkness._ Lights stabbed out of the night, the _jewel-toned gleam of magefire in the hearts of crystal_ illumination of windows and streets driving back the dark.

By instinct or desperation, his steps had driven him away from the _milling throngs of people that filled the streets with revelry_ constant crowds all out on their own business, _heedless of the pain _that gnawed at his _heart like it was being torn _out of him. Their indifference was not _their fault, for they did not know him or his _feelings, so they could not be expected to sympathize, and yet _even so their complete absorption in their own _private matters stung.

In the quiet stillness of a park _garden_ he was able to escape for a time, the walk exhausting not his body but his mind, _worn out from processing the strange, shifting world that he made his way through._ He dripped to a seat on a _broad granite_ high-backed wooden bench _and in a moment was stretched out on it._

His sleep was troubled by twisted, strange dreams, _all centering around a woman whose features kept changing, shifting, but always _in any permutation evoking emotions of loss and sorrow so strong that even the act of waking _that dispelled her image from his perception brought on a wave of bitter despair that threatened to drown his soul._

"Hey! Hey, buddy, you can't sleep here."

_The hand of the uniformed Watch_ City Police _Officer was heavy with the _casual contempt of one who'd grown to used to rousting the homeless, the drunk, the addict, the unlucky, the ill, and who _had lost his sympathy for the people themselves and their circumstances, seeking only to _remove them all from his path so he would not be bothered by their presence. _His callous indifference set a spark to despair, turning it to rage, and _with a snarl a burst of green flame _smashed into the law officer's chest, knocking him away where he lay in a crumpled heap._

The man pushed himself to his feet and stumbled on, away from the bench, away from dreams too cruel to bear, _beneath stars that shifted to and fro in the sky, refusing to hold their place in the firmament_.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning found that fog had rolled in overnight, slinking through the streets and the narrow passages between buildings. Yaris and Fate had time for a light breakfast of fruit, rolls, and black tea before Aztek was due to pick them up.

"Um..Val..." the girl hesitantly tried out Yaris's first name, and when that didn't draw a snapping reply went on, "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

Yaris popped something that resembled a grape other than its bright pink color into her mouth and bit down.

"Well, last night I thought you put sugar in your tea, a couple of packets, but this morning you're drinking it straight. Is there a reason?"

"Yeah; I prefer sweet tea, but I drink my first cup in the morning without so that the bitterness helps kick me awake."

"Oh, I see."

Yaris grinned.

"Showoff."

Fate looked confused.

"Observing and drawing conclusions," Yaris explained. "Told you that you could do it."

Fate smiled at her, glad that she hadn't done something wrong.

"Keep thinking like that during today's investigation and you'll do fine. Since it's your first time, let me take the lead, though. If you have any questions, ask them, but use telepathy. You don't have any problems with communicating heart-to-heart, do you?"

Fate shook her head.

"No, I can do that."

"Good. I assumed so, with your ranking, but I figured I'd ask since every so often you get someone who just doesn't have a knack for it. We should practice a little, but should be fine."

"Using telepathy...it's so I don't mess up your plan again, is that it?"

"Part of it, yes." She watched Fate nibble daintily at one of the local rolls, which was twisted into a double-figure-8 shape. "If you get the urge to go blasting off shooting magic again, I would appreciate if you'd check with me first. But there's more to it than that. We may want to coordinate our efforts, to have you take an active role in the questioning. And if you have ideas or useful suggestions, I want to know right away rather than find out later, when my chance to act on them is gone."

"Oh. I understand."

"Good."

"Do we have a special plan for today?"

"We go back to the beginning—to the university. Like I was saying last night, we tried to piggyback onto the ANSF's investigation to save time, but we hit a dry hole, so we're going to do it right for ourselves, from scratch. Which reminds me, we got distracted when we were discussing possibilities. I said there were three I could think of to explain the lack of chatter in underground antiquities channels, but only mentioned the offworld idea. That's the least likely of the three, by my estimate."

"Is the second that a collector had it stolen for himself or herself directly?" Fate suggested.

"Exactly. If the collector hired the thief directly, and the thief didn't talk, then it would stay off the radar. It's possible enough; if the collector was experienced in black-market dealings than he or she would know how to bring in a thief without using intermediaries. Like Zil; he probably has guys on staff that he could have just ordered to get it if he'd been the one."

"Then what's the third option?"

"That we're wrong—well, that Aztek's people are wrong—about this being the work of a pro. That whole idea of the underground antiquities market comes out of the conclusion that the theft was a professional job. If it wasn't, then the idea of a hired hand falls apart, and we're left looking for a very different kind of person behind this."

"According to the file, the computer forensics investigation showed that the security was disabled by use of a passcode."

"Which, if not an expert professional thief who planned the job in advance and got the code through a source or by hacking suggests what?" Yaris prompted, wondering if Fate would reach the same conclusion that she had. The blonde girl bit her lip, thinking seriously about the problem, and then her face lit up.

"An inside job! The passcode was used because the thief already knew it!"

"Uh-huh. So keep your eyes and ears open when we get there, because those are the people we're going to want to know the most about—but I'm going to edge around it if I can. Academics get touchy; there can be some pretty vicious feuds in the ivory towers over scholarship and prestige, but if you start throwing stones at the school they'll close ranks fast. They don't like grubby outsiders poking into the hallowed halls. Though we'll up the pressure if we have to; playing it _too_ nice might be how the local authorities got shunted onto a dead-end road."

"All right," Fate paused for a bit to sip juice and, perhaps, think, because she said, "Val, there's something I don't understand."

"Oh? Ask away."

She'd thought it would be about their investigation, but as it turned out, it wasn't.

"Why did the Andorel NSF go so far in their investigations without us? Crimes involving Lost Logia, even ones that aren't believed to be dangerous, are to be investigated by the Enforcers, or under certain circumstances the Ground Forces' Special Investigations Branch. Isn't that right?"

"Yes, it is."

"So why didn't they call us at once?"

"Jurisdictional pride."

"I don't understand."

"Well, the NSF are responsible for enforcing the law here on Andorel, and they want to show that they can do that. If they have to call in the TSAB, then they feel like they've failed, that we're saying that they can't do their jobs. If they could solve the case on their own, it would be a big boost to their ego, the chance to come in and say, 'See, you arrogant offworlders; we're more than good enough to handle this.' So Aztek and his people waited until the last legally permissible minute to call us in, and they pushed ahead with their investigation right up until the moment we were actually here to take over." Only, she thought, they'd cut corners to try and get to the finish line first, which was how they'd ended up ignoring an obvious possibility—they'd focused only on the most likely line of inquiry in the hope of completing the job.

"That doesn't make any sense!" Fate protested. "We're all working for the same goal, aren't we? To recover the Lost Logia before anyone can be hurt, and to arrest the criminals?"

"True, but that isn't all that matters to people. Self-image and pride in their work are the defining issues."

"It isn't right," Fate insisted. "If we all just did our jobs the way we were supposed to, fewer criminals would get away!"

"True enough, but it's a system run by humans. Consider this: if you'd gotten a formal reprimand over yesterday's incident and been removed from the case, would you just obey and go home, or would you argue and try to stay on the case to make up for your mistake by solving it yourself?"

The girl blushed.

"See what I mean, Fate?"

"Yeah, I guess I do."

"Do you watch crime shows on vid?"

"Sometimes. It's hard to follow a series splitting time between Earth and Midchilda."

"Well, you'll see a lot of shows where competing jurisdictions come up. If the show is about the local cops, then the outsiders will be egotistical blowhards who are out to steal the credit and take over an op the locals have done months of work on. But if the show is about the outside agency, then the locals are provincial ignoramuses who defend their 'turf' and get in the outsiders' way as much as they can. The truth is, there's a little of both bad sides going on every time. That's why I've been trying to soft-pedal things with Aztek. Yeah, his people colored outside the lines a little, but now that we are here he's been helpful and cooperative. If I got snippy over ANSF doing too much beforehand, it wouldn't change the past and would just turn the present into a pi—er, into a bureaucratic fight."

It annoyed her, moderating her language at work the way she had to at home, but the motherhood reflexes were too ingrained to start talking like a sailor (which she technically was, Enforcers being Naval investigators) in front of an eleven-year-old.

"I see. Thank you for explaining."

Yaris nodded.

"Most of the time it's like that. Nobody goes out of their way to embarrass anyone else and we manage to rub along well enough. It's just a matter of remembering what you said, that we're all here for the same thing. That way it _doesn't_ turn into a vid drama."

She finished the rest of her tea in one gulp and, noting that Fate was done as well, used her Device to open a link to the hotel room account and approved the bill to be added. _Too bad we couldn't have had our meeting with Zil over dinner at the Chateau d'Argent. It'd have been better than that sandwich from the ANSF cafeteria!_ Despite generous expense account provisions, meals always seemed to be the first thing to slip on a job. _Maybe that's why the expense account _is_ so generous—the accountants know we'll never use it so they look good for offering it while saving money._

They waited in the lobby for Aztek's arrival; it only took a couple of minutes because he was right on time. Since she knew he'd had to put in more work hours after the Enforcers had left HQ, overseeing the processing of the Zil matter, she was impressed by his punctuality.

The fog rolling through the city streets, choking the pathways between buildings, gave the roads an eerie sense of stillness. That impression was violently shattered by the morning traffic; if anything the drivers were even more chaotic and aggressive than they'd been when they could see what they were doing. They might have been driving through heavy fog to question university professors and staff about the theft from a museum of a six-thousand-year-old magical artifact, but it was impossible to sustain any sense of the mysterious and Gothic while executing crazed maneuvers through high-speed traffic.

The rush-hour feeling began to ebb, though, when they arrived at the Var Amnis University campus. They passed open, wrought-iron gates hung from massive granite pillars and proceeded down stately lanes laid out at right angles to one another, lined with tall, elegant shade trees. The fog hid the buildings for the most part, but Yaris got a glimpse of solid gray stone construction with hints of occasional architectural whimsy that differentiated one college hall from another: a large stained-glass window, a corner turret, an onion dome of verdigrised copper. Even Aztek seemed to feel the change; he slowed the convertible to a reasonable speed and proceeded through the campus without any radical maneuvers.

"Well, here we are: the Var Amnis Provincial Museum of Ancient History," he announced as he steered into a parking lot. The museum itself was large, fully three high-ceilinged stories tall to judge by the windows, and of sprawling construction, with wings spreading out left and right from the main entrance until lost in the fog.

"Impressive," Yaris murmured as they walked up the broad stone steps which were flanked, temple-like, by statues of wolf-like creatures with scaled sides, crouched in watchful poses. "Though I suppose I should expect it to be, since this is the capital city of the whole world. 'Impressive' is pretty much par for the course."

The lobby lived up to the adjective with its great domed ceiling and mosaic-tiled floor. Fate stared, rapt, at the display while they crossed to a marble-topped information desk. Given the ring of skylights piercing the domed roof, it would look even more spectacular without the fog outside.

"Can I help you?" the girl at the desk asked brightly.

"Adjutant Aztek, National Security Forces," their escort said, showing his ID. "We need to speak with Dr. Alero."

"Oh, I see. I'll connect you to his executive assistant."

A holoscreen opened up, revealing the a woman in her sixties, her sharp-featured face lined and severe, her white hair pulled back into a tight bun. She peered at them through small, round-lensed spectacles.

"Adjutant Aztek. I thought you had finished with your questions." Her tone of voice matched her expression perfectly.

"Yeah, well, we have more."

"I do not understand the necessity for—"

"Oh? I didn't know you'd recovered the Circlet of Thessidor. You should have informed us."

The woman sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Please do not be facetious, Adjutant. I merely meant that Dr. Alero is a busy man with many demands on his time. Surely you can see that making a proper appointment would be—"

"Look, Miss..." Yaris said, stepping forward.

"Liberty," Aztek supplied with a wry twist of his lips.

"Miss Liberty, I'm sure that the curator has all kinds of important exhibits to rearrange and fundraising banquets to plan, but I think wide-scale dimensional crime trumps that." She was pushing it with "wide-scale," but hey, it _was_ a Lost Logia, however weak.

"Ma'am—"

"_Enforcer_," she corrected. Did the woman not know this or was she just playing dumb for whatever reason? "Now, can you clear a couple of phone calls off Dr. Alero's schedule for us, or is he insisting on being dragged back to headquarters for a formal interview?"

"I...that is..." Miss Liberty seemed to be at a loss for a coherent response.

"That's what I thought. We'll be there in five minutes."

Aztek reached across the desk and shut off the communications link.

"Second floor, main building, just off the rear of the atrium gallery," the desk girl supplied helpfully, trying—and failing—to suppress a grin. _Gee, I'm guessing that Miss Liberty might not be the most popular member of the staff here._ Yaris knew the type all too well—uptight, officious, obsessed with protocol, and quite probably responsible for whatever financial success the museum happened to enjoy.

The atrium was the next room in from the lobby, an even larger, elliptical chamber with flying galleries running around the outside of the room on the second and third stories. In the center of the room, a massive projection of a flying city hovered, alive with thousands of intricate details, from the jewel-encrusted spires to the glittering blue waters of a central lake not entirely different from Caledon City's.

"Is that Legaria?" Fate marveled.

"Yes, the great flying city," Aztek said, unable to keep a trace of wonder out of his voice. Yaris herself was both impressed and saddened—impressed by the magical technology it must have taken to create the city and filled with sorrow at its loss, another once-great civilization reduced to being nothing but one of history's many ghosts. Lost Logia cases were by their very definition full of such ghosts, but Yaris still found herself moved by the cost, the sheer _waste_ of it all, and the thought that one day Midchilda, too, would join the ranks of fallen civilizations.

She turned away from the giant display and towards the elevator across the atrium.

"Come on, Aztek, Fate. I want to talk to this curator. After all, if we have to get past the dragon guarding the gate, then it stands to reason that there's treasure on the other side, which in this case would be a lead."

With that she set off, her heels echoing on the tiled floor.

~X X X~

The steely light of dawn and the fog rising off the lake were oddly soothing for him. Beneath Andorel's sun _the stars no longer fought one another for their place in the sky, and the shifting light no longer sought to confuse. _And the fog itself, _seething and coiling with its own mysteries, hid the world beyond and the _greater part of the images that fought with _each other, as if the strange liquid air had found its natural state. His stride was firmer, his steps along the cobblestoned street _paved sidewalk surer and less troubled.

_His mind, though, was increasingly disturbed, his _thoughts, fragmented as the strange, shifting world he walked through, _were slowly gaining more cohesion, more coherence, and as they did _confusion and bewilderment began to _be replaced by _fear_ and resentment. Clearer thought began to make some sense, at least, _of his perceptions, _awareness enough to be _frightened by what he saw and _moved to anger by it._

_Anger was easy. Just as work was easy. He could _lose himself in his projects, _bury himself in experimental research—hard, cold facts where the absence of beauty, the absence of light and hope made no difference _and which had their own passion to distract him from what was missing. _Just as fury gave him an excuse to direct the pain outwards, an outlet to lash out _even though there was nothing to be done, no blame to be laid, no one at fault other than the vagaries of chance or the fates. _For a few seconds at least his heart could be deluded into thinking he had power, the _ability to _change anything at all._

But it _was all a lie_, wasn't it? The tricks _the mind played on itself didn't work once one knew _it was a _trick, had seen behind the curtain. _You couldn't fool yourself when you knew you were trying to do it.

_He knew the truth, now._

Knew that the past three _five _months had been nothing but a _sham, his desperate lies to himself._

But he _didn't believe the _lie any more.

_Now he understood._

This was not where he needed to be.

This _was not what he needed to do._

_But he knew. He _knew where to go. _What it was he had to do when he got there._

_He walked on, awareness of purpose giving his stride even more surety. _The fog _parted before him, then seemed to close back around as he entered its depths, _swallowing him in its silent gray embrace.


	5. Chapter 5

Dr. Julian Alero, curator of the Provincial Museum of Ancient History, was almost the exact opposite of his stern, arrogant "executive assistant." In his mid-fifties, he was a short, plump man with thinning brown hair and a smiling, apple-cheeked face.

"Ah! Adjutant Aztek, I didn't expect to see you again so soon. I suspect these ladies are the cause?"

"That's right. These are Enforcers Valentine Yaris and Fate Harlaown."

"A pleasure," he greeted them with a little bow. "Please, have a seat and tell me how I can be of service. We all do so want to see the Circlet of Thessidor recovered, you see, so if there's anything at all I can help with I would be more than happy to be able to assist. Oh! Can I offer you any refreshment? Coffee, perhaps?"

"No, thank you," Yaris said. "I'm afraid we really don't have time to socialize."

"Quite right, quite right," Alero chattered on, taking his own well-cushioned seat behind his desk and gesturing invitingly towards a half-circle of visitor's chairs facing it. "After all, the Circlet is not only a rare treasure of historical significance, but so important for its value in research. Indeed, it has been more valuable towards the study of ancient Legaria than all of the other archaeological discoveries of that civilization put together."

"Why is that?" Fate asked as the officers sat down.

"Well, are you familiar with the Circlet's abilities, Enforcer?"

"Mm-hm. Our file on the Lost Logia says that it holds a record of the memories of its creator, a mage named Thessidor."

"Exactly. But what's more significant is that when the Circlet is activated, the wearer experiences those memories as if he or she was in a kind of virtual reality, as five-sense impressions. You could see with the eyes of someone who was actually there—observe the daily life of the citizens, see the actual uses of their magic, listen to discussions on politics, religion, philosophy, or the ordinary minutiae of daily life. Why, you could even taste the food! Now, it isn't interactive—you can't choose a course of action or zoom in on a particular area, for example, but the amount of available information is astonishing. It gives us the chance to do primary research in a civilization that's six thousand years in the past!"

"Wow! My friend Yuuno would really love to use something like that! He's an archaeologist from the Scrya clan," Fate added.

"Yes, I'm sure he would appreciate it, then," Alero agreed. "To a professional in the field, the Circlet of Thessidor's worth is...it is beyond price!"

"Beyond price in the sense of 'would do anything to get their hands on it'?" Yaris interjected mildly.

The curator rocked back in his chair, blinking owlishly at his visitor like her question had completely derailed his thought process.

"Oh, my. But I...I thought that a professional thief must surely be responsible."

"We're examining all possibilities," Yaris said.

"Well, I certainly can't think that any of our researchers here would do such a thing. We're talking of—oh!" He straightened up out of his slouch as, apparently, a thought came to him. "You must also consider, Enforcer, that even if an archaeologist or historian did steal the Circlet, they could not benefit from it. It would impart knowledge, yes, but they could not use that knowledge. Any attempt to publish an article or book based on what they could gain would immediately mark them as the thief, and any attempt to disguise the source of the information would ruin the publication's academic credibility."

"Is publication so important?" Fate asked.

"My dear girl, have you ever heard the expression 'publish or perish'? An academic's reputation and career prospects are all built on the strength of his or her production of new work. After all, what is the point of a scholar who does not study?"

"I see."

"That's actually one of the reasons we initially focused our investigation towards the collector's market," Aztek supplied. "There's no _practical_ benefit to be gained from the theft."

"Maybe not scholarly," Yaris agreed, "and I presume we can rule out melodramatic nonsense like lost treasures?" She arched an eyebrow at the curator, who chuckled.

"Oh, my, yes. Certainly no one has found anything of _that_ sort. No directions to cached loot, no wizard's laboratories or guides to even more wondrous artifacts."

"Thank Heaven," the blue-haired Enforcer said with deep feeling. She'd actually had a couple of cases that had turned into such adventure-movie ridiculousness and hated every minute of them. "What about information that would have a more directly financial benefit than through scholarship?"

"Oh? What do you mean?" Alero's interest was piqued.

"Well, Legaria was an ancient civilization with magical technology that produced at least one Lost Logia. What about their scientific secrets, their spell techniques and applied technologies? If the mage who created the Circlet of Thessidor is the man whose memories are storied inside, then, well, that's one Lost Logia he knew how to create, at least."

The curator shook his head.

"No, as I said, I'm afraid that using the Circlet provides the wearer with only sense impressions of the stored memories, not access to Thessidor's thoughts or knowledge."

"Yes, but couldn't those sense impressions include him looking at his notes? Or studying in their schools or the like? Or the sound of him talking with other people about Legarian magic?" she said, warming to her theme.

Dr. Alero stared at her in surprise for nearly fifteen seconds before he spoke up.

"Do you know, there might be something in what you say, Ms. Yaris."

"A thief might plan to sell the Circlet to a technology company with an R&D department. Their use of it could then be publicized as 'new breakthroughs.' Is that a possibility?"

"It's...I suppose it's _possible_..." Alero mused. "You would have to speak to some of the other researchers. Professor Vanza, for example, is more focused on the technological and magical aspects of Legarian civilization; my own inquiries are primarily social, cultural, rather than concerned with the mechanical aspects of daily life. But the thing is..." He paused, as if trying to best frame his thoughts.

"Yes?" she prompted.

"Well, when we speak of 'Lost Logia' or 'ancient advanced civilizations,' there is a strong aspect of fantasy and imagination involved. We look back at the past through a gaze tinged with romanticism. We see giants, gods, even where there were only men and women."

"So you're saying that Legaria was no Al-Hazard, then," Yaris summed up.

"You understand me exactly." He steeped his fingers and leaned forward across his desk, his intensity growing as the discussion turned to more academic matters. "The point would, I think, be illustrated perfectly if you were to visit our Legarian exhibits here, but I doubt that you have the time. The mystique of the culture rests in the fact that at a time when the other peoples of Andorel were discovering the basic concepts of agriculture and learning the use of metals such as copper and bronze to replace stone tools, the Legarians were mastering the principles of magical power. Although their learning advanced by leaps and bounds, enabling stunning gains in construction, methods of transport, climate control, communications, resource management, and, yes, combat, their organization was still based on a master-apprentice method of education; knowledge and, hence, power, was concentrated among the magically gifted."

"I'm not quite sure how that's relevant."

"Well, it's like this, Ms. Yaris. In the advanced magical societies that we know of in history, magic is treated practically, as a science. There are a variety of cultures, governments, values, but in all of them, magic is a force to be researched. Legaria had a lot of magical knowledge but they applied it through a system of guilds. The flying city, for example, or powered vehicles and the like, but not to the point that it became a totally industrialized civilization in the sense that we understand it—the technology base wasn't advanced enough for that, either magical or non-magical."

"Oh!" exclaimed Fate. "Then it's like one of those magic societies in a sword-and-sorcery fantasy RPG!" Fate exclaimed, then suddenly blushed.

_Sorry, I didn't mean to drag my friends' hobbies into this. Hayate and Arisa especially like those kinds of games, and..._ Fate's "voice" in Yaris's mind faded out.

_I just wish I got the reference._

"So your bet is that, while Legarian magic was advanced, it wasn't to the point that people would be stealing it?"

Alero nodded.

"Exactly. Or at least that's my best understanding of the situation. I could be wrong—as I said, it isn't my area of expertise."

"Whose expertise would it be, exactly? You mentioned a Professor Vanza before." Yaris then stopped and redirected her questioning. "With what you've said about the Circlet's importance to Legarian scholars, you'd have to have access to it to be one of those experts. I assume that not just anyone can walk in and use the Circlet?"

"Good heavens, no! On the contrary, access is quite closely regulated, due not only to the Circlet's value as a historical treasure, but also to the fundamentally unknown nature of its magic. Only a very particular group of scholars is given that access, and that under restricted conditions."

"Names?" Aztek suggested.

"Well, the list changes from term to term, since the Legarian Research Project is run through the University. Professor Janos Vanza of the Applied Magical Studies Department and I are the co-chairs. The others are Dr. Alexis Accord of Ancient History; Dr. Gordon Saab, anthropologist; Professor Blake Montana, a colleague of Vanza's in Applied Magical Studies; and visiting scholar Dr. Dalen Equinox from Tarediya Memorial University in Shala Merai."

"And who among them has the passcodes to the museum security system?" Yaris asked.

"Only myself and Professor Vanza, other than the museum security chief, of course."

"Then it sounds to me like we need to talk with this Professor Vanza for several reasons, doesn't it?"

"Oh, but surely you cannot suspect him of being involved in theft. I tell you, it simply isn't possible! He just isn't capable of such a thing!"

"It's been my experience," Fate—_Fate, of all people!_ Yaris thought—said somberly, "that people are capable of almost anything if they have a good enough reason."

~X X X~

In retrospect, Yaris decided, Fate's remark hadn't been so out-of-character as it had seemed at first blush. The girl's very existence, after all, had been due to illegal research into cloning. Yaris also remembered a note concerning Fate's involvement in the Jewel Seed incident—_found not criminally responsible_. That meant that she _had_ acted during that incident in a fashion which had given rise to charges, but that there had been extenuating circumstances. So Fate probably did have personal knowledge of what people were willing to do and how far they'd go for the right cause, despite her age.

Dr. Alero's directions to his colleague's office were easy to follow, especially with the campus map they'd downloaded to their Devices. They were lucky enough to catch him in, and his secretary was positively friendly.

"Oh, of course he's available," she said. "I'm sure that he'll want to help you with whatever you need. There's a student with him now, but it shouldn't be more than a few minutes, if you wouldn't mind waiting."

As it turned out, it was in fact less than five minutes before the door slid open and a red-haired coed wearing a clinging, bare-midriff top and a skimpy miniskirt backed out of Vanza's inner office.

"Thank you so much for your help, Professor. I really feel like I'm making progress with the material, but..." She coiled a lock of hair around her fingertip. "...I really think that I could use some additional..._private_...tutoring."

The man she was talking to was certainly handsome: tall, chocolate-skinned, with sharp-edged features and dark green hair. He blinked twice, his dark amber eyes looking somewhat unfocused.

"Of course I'd be glad to make time for you," he said. "Just make an appointment with Miss Accent."

The secretary couldn't suppress a sudden grin. The student turned to her, as if not believing what she had heard. Miss Accent just shrugged, as if to say, "Told you." The amorous coed looked back at Vanza, who kept watching her with that same oblivious, smiling expression. He then looked past her, catching sight of the three law officers standing there.

"Um, Helen, who are these people? Did I forget an appointment again?"

"No, professor. They're investigating the theft of the Circlet of Thessidor from the museum and wanted to talk to you. I told them you'd be glad to help."

"Oh, yes, of course. Do come in." He beckoned them on, and they approached, passing the now red-faced girl, who was mortified to realize she'd had four witnesses to her inability to not merely seduce her professor, but to even get him to realize that she was making the attempt.

"Think she'll make that appointment?" Aztek murmured under his breath.

"Five to one she drops the class," Yaris decided.

_Fate, remember what I said at breakfast about playing it carefully with these academics so that they don't get defensive?_

_Yes._

_Never mind it,_ Yaris instructed. _With this guy, we're going to have to ask direct questions to get direct answers._

Vanza's office was as disordered as Yaris would have expected from the exchange in the outer room. Four holoscreens hung open in seemingly random places, adding to the clutter of books, data units, and even hard-copy paper printouts scattered everywhere.

"Now, ladies, sir, how can I help? I'm very happy to do whatever I can; we need the Circlet recovered if we're to advance our work with the Legarian Research Project."

"Dr. Alero said that you and he were the co-chairs of that group?" Aztek asked.

"Yes, absolutely, and we're making some fascinating discoveries. Were you aware that certain magical principles used by the Legarians weren't rediscovered until over five thousand years later, when Andorel encountered the Belkan Empire? And yet other techniques entered into the global culture and were disseminated throughout the wold even after Legaria fell. Dr. Saab thinks there may be some connection between the religious history of the period and the speed of acceptance; she's been able to trace connections between certain miraculous events attributed to certain saints and Legarian magic. It's positively fascinating! It's exactly the kind of thing we need to recover the Circlet for. Or poor Blake's work on the connections between the process of the Circlet's functions in memory record and our modern principles of telepathy; he can hardly do anything with that project without the Circlet, and he'd been working so hard on it, too. To say nothing of Dr. Equinox. His visiting professorship ends at the close of the semester, so he'd have to go back home and leave his work to others! No, we absolutely need you to recover the Circlet. So go on; how can I be of help?"

Yaris blinked at the torrent of words. Vanza's thoughts—his speech was so stream-of-consciousness that calling it anything but "thoughts" would be fundamentally inaccurate—were coherent enough, but completely overwhelming. He had the absent-minded professor routine down to an art form, which made her suspicious Enforcer's mind wonder if it was an act on any level.

"We're looking into possible reasons for the Circlet's theft," she said. "As a scholar of magical history, would you say that Legarian magic would have commercial value?"

"Commercial? How do you mean?"

"Would it be worth something to a company to try and develop some of Legaria's magical technology for modern use?"

"Oh, I see! Well, that is a very good question, isn't it?"

"Dr. Alero suggested it would be unlikely, since Legarian technology was generally inferior to ours," Aztek prompted.

"Well, that's generally true, but...see, the most significant difference in our relative magic culture levels isn't so much that our technology can do more but how we do it. Legarian magical technology was generally created through the enchantment method, while ours is largely imbued."

"What's the difference?" Aztek asked.

"Enchantments are the expression of the magical power of a specific mage, while imbuements are more of a matter of the magical properties of the materials or programs themselves. You see enchantment in a pre-industrial society, where magical knowledge is concentrated in the hands of a certain select few; you need imbuements to be able to create, say..." He glanced around the room. "Ah! Video displays in a factory. An enchantment-based technology might also have video displays, but each one would have to be hand-crafted by a mage who knows the proper spell combinations. You can't really have mass production that way. So Legarian magic may well include some valuable concepts worthy of development—the Circlet itself, for example—but further substantial research would be needed to apply those concepts in a commercially viable fashion."

"I see. Is this information widely known?" Yaris asked.

"Some discussion of it appears in a number of scholarly works about Legaria," he said. "Three months ago I published an article in the _Journal of Applied Magical Studies_ which compared the magic cultures of several so-called 'lost civilizations.' It was mostly a 'fluff piece,' you might say, but it did contain the data."

_So much for that bright idea_, Yaris thought.

_Why?_ Fate asked.

_The odds are, someone ambitious enough to extend their industrial espionage into antiquities theft would do their research beforehand to learn if there's anything to gain from the risk and expense._

"I understand that you're one of three people who knows the passcode to the security system?"

"Oh, yes," he said. "That's right, I do have it, though I can't see why I'd need it; I always do my research work during regular hours and have the security chief or Julian code me in to get the Circlet from the display." He chuckled, then grinned broadly. "You've probably guessed already that I can barely remember my link address. Now, where was it again?" He began shuffling through the papers.

"Your...link address?" Fate asked hesitantly.

"The passcode. Ah! Here we are." He pulled a sheet of paper out of a stack.

_If he just keeps it lying around, then anyone could see and copy it!_ Fate's mental "voice" rang with excitement.

_And I'm betting any of his colleagues that's known him for more than five minutes would know they could look for it._

"Have you given that passcode to anyone else?"

Vanza shook his head.

"No, I'm not allowed to, worse the luck. They should have let Blake have it; he spends half the night there, sometimes. Or Alexis; she'd have been a better choice for project leader than I am, but the administration wanted someone from the technical/engineering side of things to balance out Julian's anthropological approach. I'm glad, of course, because the work is absolutely fascinating, but I'm simply not the best choice for leadership."

It would have been impolite to agree. The casual ease with which Vanza had rattled off answers told Yaris why he'd been added to the project, for his expertise rather than his administrative skills. The concept was not entirely different from how a certain child prodigy with no investigative experience but immense magical talent had been assigned to this case.

"Can you think of any one of your colleagues who'd have a reason to steal the Circlet?" she put it bluntly.

Vanza drew himself up.

"Enforcer, you are talking about my friends and associates! They're scholars and scientists, not thieves!"

"The two categories aren't mutually exclusive," Yaris observed dryly.

"In this case they are. None of them would even think of stealing the Circlet for monetary value, and they could hardly gain any other benefit from it. Besides, it's not even the most valuable item in the museum's collection." His eyes widened as he realized the implications of what he was saying. "Why, that's true, isn't it? A thief certainly wouldn't just take the Circlet."

"It's a Lost Logia," Yaris pointed out. "That gives it value." But he had a point. Precious metals, gemstones, artistic merit, or association with historical figures and events conveyed worth on an object; the Circlet definitely had value to someone, but the kind that made someone pass up other, more valuable rarities? "Though your point goes to illustrate mine, Professor: a thief, seeking a prize that would bring him or her the most money, wouldn't take one single item after passing by things that are more valuable, more easily sold, and which wouldn't draw the attention of the TSAB."

"That _is_ a point," Aztek agreed. "Taking, say, Queen Meliane's sapphire necklace would be a local theft investigated by the Caledon City police. Taking the Circlet makes it a matter for the Enforcers and brings in the National Security Forces for planet-wide support. It doesn't make sense."

The three law officers looked at one another.

"There's no other conclusion to draw. This wasn't about money at all."

~X X X~

The fog had begun to roll back as the morning wore on, leaving the cold, steel-gray sky visible above.

_A fitting day, he decided, for his purpose. A faint wind stirred the water before him, making waves lap against the retaining wall—dull, dark waves without the promise or brightness that blue skies lent the water. A fisher-bird screeched ominously as he turned his feet towards the _causeway's pedestrian path _long, arching bridge and began to walk._


	6. Chapter 6

Professor Vanza had been unable, or at least claimed to be unable, to clarify just what it was other than money that someone would want with the Circlet of Thessidor. Still, it was impossible to deny the facts. It had not been offered for sale as an antiquity. Yaris's idea about its knowledge potentially being worth money had been showed to be unlikely. Its intrinsic value as an object was not as high as other items not taken that would have been less trouble.

"There's no two ways around it," Yaris said. "Either the idea of a collector who hired a thief to take the specific item for his or her own collection is correct, or else somebody wanted the Circlet for what it was—a Lost Logia with specific powers that suited his or her private purpose."

"But what purpose could it be?" complained Aztek. "I mean, the Circlet is impressive if you're studying the history and culture of Legaria, but it doesn't do anything else. Everyone I've talked to says so!"

"As does the Bureau's Lost Logia file," Yaris agreed. "I mean, why would someone want it other than scholarship? As an advanced virtual reality entertainment system that leaves in the really boring parts of daily life?"

"Um..."

"Yes, Fate?"

"Well...I was just thinking...the people who get involved with Lost Logia, they don't necessarily know for sure what they can do."

"I don't follow," Aztek said.

"We know what the Circlet is capable of, so we're trying to decide what kind of person would have taken it and for what reason, aren't we? But the person who took it...she might not really know what it can do. She might just be acting on hope that it will be able to solve her problems. After all, a professional thief might steal just as an ordinary part of business, but to break into a museum and steal a prized artifact a normal person would have to have a very powerful reason to make her do something against her nature."

Her voice was thick with growing emotion, and her use of "she" and "her" convinced Yaris that Fate was thinking of one of the incidents in the girl's past.

"So you think maybe the thief took the Circlet of Thessidor for something it _can't_ do?"

"I think it's possible the thief had a desperate reason, something very important to him or her, and that they had a hope the Circlet can answer that need for them."

Yaris thought about it.

"You have a point."

"She does?"

"Well, think about it. Every time we think we've figured out a good reason why someone would steal the Circlet, it turns out to be a dry hole. Fate's right; the evidence just doesn't support the idea of someone stealing it for any rational purpose."

"So how do we follow up on that?"

"Remember that passcode was used, and how the theft was carried out cleanly. That implies knowledge of the museum routine—a professional thief or an inside job. Your forensics team found nothing significant—again, a professional who can cover their tracks or somebody like Dr. Alero whose fingerprints and DNA and so on are everywhere anyway. I bet you found trace evidence from the entire Legarian Research Project team."

"Not to mention thousands of members of the general public," he noted.

"So we're not lost, per se. Since we're here now, we had might as well finish interviewing the researchers. They had the best opportunity to know the museum's routine, to be aware of Vanza's rather casual attitude towards security, and to have at least some familiarity with the function of the Circlet. If that doesn't check out, we can widen our search."

"It still feels like we're further and further away from a solution," Aztek groused. "I mean, it could be anybody, someone like that girl who was trying to hit on Vanza during his office hours. They might just take the Circlet and vanish into the crowd."

Yaris glanced at Fate, their somber expressions mirroring each other.

"Aztek, there's one thing you learn in a real hurry on these Lost Logia cases."

"What's that?"

"It isn't them disappearing that worries you. It's when they come back."

~X X X~

Blake Montana, the other Applied Magical Studies professor on the research team, wasn't in, so the investigators crossed to Gallarn Hall across the street where the history and anthropology departments were based. There they had the same bad luck; Gudrun Saab was in a class and wouldn't be finished for another hour and a half, Dalan Equinox had the day off (ironically, this would have been his day to work with the Circlet of Thessidor), and Alexis Accord had apparently gone over to the museum for some project management matter that probably could have been handled just fine over an image screen.

Interrupting Saab was out of the question. Contacting Montana or Equinox remotely was an option, and one they'd follow if it came to that, but the investigators preferred an in-person interview. There were elements of body language and manner that didn't convey themselves well remotely, and intimidation—if it became in any way necessary—was far easier to convey in person, with a physical presence. So it was back to the museum, where they caught up with Accord on the atrium's third-level gallery.

The floating holo-model of Legaria was even more impressive from this point of view, where Yaris could more easily make out the graceful spires rising at one end of the city from two buildings that faced each other across the main thoroughfare. Temples, perhaps, or palaces, she thought, or maybe one of each. Like the modern capital, Legaria had a central lake with an island, but this one didn't show the kind of development that had led the modern Andorelans to put a spaceport there, instead just showing a scattering of small structures that barely looked longer than a person in scale.

The sound of a female voice pulled Yaris away from her contemplation of the ancient city.

"Enforcers? Adjutant?"

Yaris looked up, seeing the trim figure of the redhead they'd set up the meeting with approaching along the gallery. She wore a green pantsuit that matched her eyes and her shoes clicked sharply off the floor tiles.

"It's us, Dr. Accord."

"Good. Let's skip the pleasantries and get right to it. You need to ask your questions and I need to get back to knocking some sense into the heads of these idiots. They're trying to close the exhibit due to 'possible negative publicity' about the theft—like the fact that the theft happened at all is somehow an embarrassment. Trustees! I swear, sometimes I think _they_ should be on display in a history exhibit."

Yaris liked her immediately.

"As a member of the Legarian Research Project, you've used the Circlet of Thessidor?"

"Of course, though not as extensively as some of the other members."

"Why is that?" Fate asked.

"Perspective. I'm a historian. I largely think in terms of the big picture—of social and political movements and the events that they create or they are driven by. I'm interested in Legaria's rise and fall and in its interactions with and influence on other cultures, in the role it played in our development. The Circlet of Thessidor gives us the small-scale picture. It's the record of one man's life, essentially a magical memoir consisting not of selected thoughts written down but of the actual memories. For Gudrun—Dr. Saab—or Dr. Alero, who are interested anthropologically, culturally, in the fine details, the small scale of history that lets us recreate history in terms of people, well, the Circlet is a gift from Heaven. For me, while occasionally useful, it's just a tool. And this Thessidor, unfortunately, wasn't all that politically-minded; he was just a family man and a skilled wizard."

"I see," Yaris mused. "So it's more of a doorway into daily life, scholastically speaking."

"Exactly. The boys from Applied Magical Studies even get more out of it, because they've gotten all kinds of looks at some of the Legarian magical techniques. For example, look down there." She pointed at the floating display. "Do you see those amethyst obelisks, sixteen of them, around the rim of the city? Those are flight enablers, similar to the lift pod in a combat drone. Vanza says they were inefficient as hell, but it's still pretty amazing given that the surrounding cultures were still using Bronze Age technology and almost no applied magic at all."

She looked back at Yaris.

"So how does any of this tell you who stole the Circlet?"

"I don't know," the Enforcer replied flatly.

"Shouldn't you? I mean, you'd think it'd be important to know what it was you were trying to accomplish when you take the time to interview people."

"You can spare the sarcasm," Yaris chuckled. "The point is, in the absence of specific clues, it's important to get a complete picture of the people and situations involved in the situation. You can't separate the wheat from the chaff before you reap the field...which is enough metaphor for one day, I think."

"Agreed. But I see what you mean. It's the same as in history. If you start guessing with only a few facts, you're out of luck. And, of course, once you get a pet theory, it's hard to disentangle it from the truth even if you learn better at a later time."

"Answer this, then. Who do you think would benefit most from stealing the Circlet?"

Dr. Accord frowned, thinking.

"That's a hard question. An obsessed collector, I suppose, someone with a fixation on Legaria."

"Not a scholar, then?"

"An obsessed scholar? Maybe. The bug would have to bite pretty hard to inspire a theft, though. It'd have to be for the pure sake of the knowledge, not for gain. You don't get fame, tenure, and international recognition for work that gets you arrested."

"That's what Dr. Alero said, when he told us about why publishing is important to a scholar," Fate commented.

_As if they were reading off the same cue cards_, Yaris thought. Of course, the question itself wasn't that complex, so it might just be that the answer was the answer.

"But," Fate continued, "there's one thing both of you also said that I don't quite follow. Why is it that any breakthrough would instantly identify the thief as _being_ the thief?"

"Because any scientific research, whether in the liberal arts or the 'hard' sciences, has to be backed up by evidence. That means documented experimentation results, or citation to existing sources. A book that makes claims without support will just be laughed at, and in the field of Legarian study it's widely known that _only_ the Circlet of Thessidor can provide certain _kinds_ of facts, so everyone in the field would realize at once what the writer's source must be."

"That's also pretty much what Dr. Alero said," Aztek confirmed.

"Well, he's right. You'd have to be pretty far around the bend to think you could get anywhere by stealing the Circlet. You get a few fringe whackos, for example, that think Legaria was Andorel's own private Al-Hazard, with all the secrets to enlightenment and eternal life to be found there."

Yaris noted that Fate's eyes dropped to her feet.

"Would these 'fringe whackos' have access to the museum security passcode, though?"

"No, I suppose you've got a point. We certainly don't have anyone like that on the university staff."

"What about students?"

Accord blinked.

"Well, that's another matter. I'm sure there are any number of them. The university years are a time for passionate ideals, after all, where a person can combine an educated awareness of ideas with insulation from the realities of the world. Extremism, whether political, social, religious, economic, or scientific, is the norm. Then they get jobs and families, live in the real world, and come to understand that reality is too complicated for extremes. A few never learn that and become fanatics, while others learn it too well and become cynics. If we do our jobs right as educators, though, extreme beliefs get the sharp edges rounded off and become ideals, dreams to strive towards."

It seemed, Yaris decided, that Accord was as prone to break into a speech as her male colleagues.

"Okay, then, let me check something." She had Star Sentry contact Vanza's office, getting Helen Accent on the screen.

"Enforcer? Can I help you?"

"Just a quick question. Would you allow a student to wait inside Professor Vanza's office for him if he was late for office hours or something?"

The secretary shook her head.

"Definitely not. He's as likely as not to have sensitive information up on a screen or lying around in hardcopy—test questions or answers, student files, or Heaven knows what else."

"What about a colleague, a fellow professor?"

"Well, that's a different thing, of course. For that matter, there have been plenty of times where he's just told someone to stop by and help themselves to whatever they needed if he was out. That happens with library books, especially. He has a bad habit of forgetting to return grimoires to the Rare Works Collection."

"I see; thank you."

"You're welcome, Enforcer."

Yaris cleared out the screen.

"We seem to be narrowing the field," she said dryly.

"Enforcer, you can't expect me to believe that one of my friends and colleagues is a thief!" Dr. Accord snapped. "I may have my occasional differences with them, but they're all first-rate scholars, some of the most highly respected in their fields. What's more, as part of the Legarian Research Project, we already _have_ access to the Circlet of Thessidor. Why steal what you could use honestly?"

"What about someone who was passed over? Someone with an axe to grind by making trouble for the rest of you?"

"That's absurd. You're asking me to believe an academic tiff could escalate into a crime?"

"Workplace feuds have ended up with murder in the past," Aztek said flatly. "Theft isn't the worst way something like this could end up, not by a long shot."

"No." She shook her head. "It's impossible."

"I don't like the word 'impossible,'" Yaris said. "Guess."

"I won't."

"Then you're going on record in your official statement to the TSAB in a Lost Logia investigation that conditions at Var Amnis University are such that it's absolutely impossible for academic jealousy or personal ill-feeling to have played any part in the theft of the Circlet of Thessidor?"

"I—" Accord clenched her fists, frustration written all over her face. Yaris didn't blame her for the feeling; after all, it meant either selling out a co-worker or, as Yaris had spelled out bluntly for her, signing on board for substantial charges, the kind that could mean prison time. Keeping Lost Logia under proper control was one of the Bureau's central reasons for existence, and willfully obstructing that purpose was a serious matter.

"Well?"

"Fine," Accord snapped, eyes flashing. "Try the Applied Magical Studies department. Happy now?"

"Actually, no, not without more detail than that. Who in Applied Magical Studies and why?"

"Any one of them, for Heaven's sake. Vanza...the man is brilliant, beyond brilliant if you ask me, but he takes absent-mindedness to the point that he's a parody of the stereotype. The fact that he got picked to be co-chair of the project made some people positively irate. And Blake Montana basically got tabbed for the extra slot in order to be nice."

"_Nice_?" Aztek couldn't resist interjecting. "He was put on one of the University's most high-profile research projects to be _nice_?"

"Blake's wife died three months ago, of Amardi's Syndrome, which meant half a year of the steady, painful failure of multiple organs while the mind remains fully intact in a decaying shell. Two out of three sufferers choose assisted suicide within the first two months, but Mrs. Montana refused. She wasn't waiting for a miracle; she just didn't want to abandon her husband for the sake of her own comfort. Those were her exact words, Adjutant. So yes, Professor Montana was selected ahead of at least three arguably more-qualified candidates because it was believed it would give him a chance to divert his mind from his personal losses. The Montanas didn't have any children, as well, which made things even worse for him. But you know how it is; some people only think of themselves and can't be bothered to consider anybody else's situation."

There was a bitter twist to her voice as she delivered the last sentence that made it clear she was referring to the Enforcers demanding her admission rather than to any hypothetically jealous professor in the Applied Magical Studies Department. The investigators, though, were too affected by the actual story to worry about the subtext.

_That's awful!_ Fate exclaimed mentally. _I feel so sorry for him!_

_Yeah, I guess that explains why Vanza called him "Poor Blake," doesn't it?_

_I'm not surprised that he put in such long hours. The opportunity to study the Circlet must have been the only thing keeping him from being crushed under his despair._

_Probably so. No wonder he's not even at work today, if there—_

She broke off the thought suddenly.

Vanza had said, "They should have let Blake have it; he spends half the night there sometimes."

Also, "...work on the connections between the processes of the Circlet's functioning in memory record and our modern principles of telepathy."

"Dr. Accord," Yaris said aloud, "The Circlet of Thessidor...let me verify that I understand this: it serves as an _exact record_ of the mage Thessidor's memories, for his entire life? Not just the things people can actually remember in a normal way, but each and every detail?"

"That's right."

"And...Professor Montana was studying, not the details of Legarian history revealed by the Circlet, but the actual magical principles behind how the Circlet itself worked?"

"Well, yes, he...oh, no, you can't possibly be thinking..."

"Dr. Accord, magic has never been able to find a way to resurrect the dead, but what if you could relive every moment you had with that person, not just as a memory, but as it actually happened? The sound of her voice, the smell of her perfume, the touch of her skin, _everything_? It'd be almost like having her back with you."

Fate gasped.

"It's impossible!" Accord snapped. "Blake Montana is a good man, damn it. He wouldn't do something like that. And he wouldn't need to, if what you say is true. Even if he wanted to duplicate the Circlet for himself, well, he could just _do_ that."

"What if he couldn't?" Yaris said. "It's a Lost Logia, after all, from a civilization whose magical technology is fundamentally different from ours, regardless of the similarities. Maybe only the original would do. Or maybe he just couldn't wait, but had to have constant access to get the work done, or was just too obsessed to wait."

"It's not—he wouldn't—"

"Yes, he would," Fate said in a _very_ small voice. "Dr. Accord, you don't know what grief and loss can do to someone. Even the kindest person—no, _especially_ the kindest person—can break under the weight of it and do things that we could never believe of them."

"Look, there's an easy way to settle the point. Let's just find the guy and investigate," Aztek suggested practically.

A call to the department indicated that Professor Montana had called in sick—"and looking it," according to the receptionist—the morning after the theft and hadn't been back to work since. His comm terminal and his home link both went unanswered, the latter going straight to a message screen.

There was a secondary number listed for the home, labeled "front desk"; Montana apparently lived in a block of condominiums with a regular service staff. A uniformed young man appeared at once.

"Norieola Suites."

"Enforcer Yaris, TSAB," the senior investigator said, causing her credentials to display on the desk clerk's screen. "I need to speak with a Professor Blake Montana; I believe he lives in 304."

"I have his number, ma'am."

"I've tried it already, Mr.—"

"Century, ma'am."

"It's 'Enforcer,' not 'ma'am,' and Professor Montana doesn't answer."

He blinked.

"Well, if he doesn't answer—"

"Can you tell me if he coded in or out of the building recently? Your security log should show that."

"Well, gee, I guess it would, but I'm not sure I should be—"

"Yes, you should. Check with your supervisor if you don't believe me, but you are required to deliver pertinent data when an Enforcer requests it in the course of an investigation, Mr. Century."

"Yes, ma—Enforcer," he said, swallowing nervously.

"I'm glad it's not just me," Accord said sourly.

"Oh, I'm an equal-opportunity ball-buster," Yaris shot back.

"Here it is," Century spoke up. "Oh! This shows that Professor Montana coded out of the building yesterday afternoon at 3:47. Why, I was on duty then—he didn't look too good. I hope he's all right."

"Didn't look good? How so?"

"Well..." The doorman pursed his lips. "He kinda acted drunk or high or something. He was a little wobbly on his feet, and almost crashed into a couple of people. I asked if he needed any help, but he pretty much told me to shove off. He made it out the door all right, and he must have had his key with him because the sec-system recorded it as leaving the building." Century shook his head. "If you ask me, he looked more like he was coming home from a party than he did somebody who was leaving his own home. Not just how he acted, either. I mean, somebody my age'd have to be drunk to wear a crown-thing with a big green jewel in the middle of it, let alone a professor, right?"

"The...'crown-thing,' did it look like this?" Yaris quickly had a picture of the Circlet display on Century's screen.

"Yeah, that's right. Why, what's going on?"

"If you see him come back in, contact me immediately, and tell whomever takes over your shift the same thing." She sent the doorman her contact data. "Don't approach him or let him know that we want to talk with him. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Enforcer. But...does this mean that he—"

"Good. Let me know," she cut him off, then disengaged.

Dr. Accord stared at Yaris in shock.

"I can't believe it. I just can't believe it.."

"Never mind that. If he was wearing the Circlet, could that explain his behavior? Trying to balance the perceptions of the past and present?"

"It shouldn't be possible...when you use the Circlet, it completely immerses you in the record of memories, but you're always aware of yourself. You just...sit there and experience it, nothing more. And trying to walk while it's operating ought to be functionally impossible. Imagine trying to cross a room without _any_ of your senses."

"Maybe it's an aftereffect of uploading his own memories into it?" Aztek suggested. "If you're right about why he took it, that is. _Something_ must have sent him loopy or he wouldn't have been walking around just wearing the thing."

"Professor Vanza...he said that Professor Montana was studying the connection between the Circlet and telepathy, didn't he?" Fate asked.

"Yeah. Do you have an idea?"

Fate nodded.

"Sort of. It's just that I can't help but think what everyone says about the Circlet has to be wrong. Everyone describes it as holding only a record of Thessidor's five senses, but...memories are so much more than that." She opened her mouth to say something more, then glanced shyly at Aztek and Accord before looking back at Yaris.

_Val, do you know...how I was born?_

_It was in your file; you're an artificial mage, right?_

_That's right. I...my mother gave me my late sister Alicia's memories from her childhood._

_Memory transfer—the sort of thing the Circlet does?_

_Yes, except it required the actual brain to be scanned for a direct transfer. It's just...those memories _aren't_ just what Alicia saw or heard; I can remember thinking the things she thought, feeling her emotions. All those things are part of what makes up memories, and I can't see how they could be separated out._

_That's a point. Still, Alero, Vanza, and Accord all agree that it's what the Circlet does, as does the Bureau's Lost Logia database. They can't all be wrong._

_I suppose not..._ Fate sounded dejected.

_Except...what if it's not a recording problem but a playback one? The memories are there in the Circlet, but when you use it, you only get a limited selection back._

_Oh! Like if one headphone breaks and you can't hear certain stereo sound effects!_

Yaris didn't get the analogy, but figured if Fate could draw a comparison at all it meant she was following the logic.

_Only_, Yaris continued with her theory, _when Montana tried to telepathically connect to the Circlet to record his memory—_

_He opened a new path to link with Thessidor's memories as well!_ Fate finished for her.

"Great. So now we have a depressed university professor who may _think_ he's a wizard who's been dead for six thousand years," Yaris couldn't help but groan aloud.

"Huh?" Aztek took a couple of seconds to figure out that the Enforcers had been continuing their conversation mentally. "Wait—so you figure he, like, tapped into stuff no one knew was in the Circlet?"

"Exactly."

"But if he thinks he's Thessidor, where would he go?"

"How would I know? Get out an all-points bulletin to all the law enforcement agencies in the city, so any sightings are reported. No, wait—I mean, don't wait, but I have an idea. Dr. Accord, where in Legaria would someone like Thessidor's family be buried?"

"The bodies of commoners were cremated, and those of the mage class were buried in a cemetery in the center of the city."

"Where, exactly? Show me on that model."

"I meant it literally; the cemetery was on the island in the central lake." She pointed towards the floating display.

Aztek paused in the act of giving details to a uniformed police agent over his comm terminal.

"The central island? But Caledon City is built around a lake, too, and we have an island in the center—and instead of a cemetery, that's where the spaceport is."

Yaris and Fate shared a worried glance. A vulnerable location, densely populated, was exactly the wrong place to engage an enemy. The substantial percentage of magically active individuals meant that using a barrier to shift into an alternate space-time would be only somewhat useful in protecting possible against possible collateral damage.

"Contact security there first," Yaris instructed. "Tell them that they should keep an eye out for him, but give him a wide berth—to keep any bystanders out of his way. Preserving people's safety is their job, _not_ apprehending Professor Montana."

"Got it."

"You're acting like Blake is some kind of dangerous criminal!" Accord protested.

Yaris sighed sharply.

"Dr. Accord, how would you react if you went to visit your wife's grave and you found that someone had built a spaceport over it?" She glanced at her partner. "Come on, Fate; let's see if we can get there _before_ the crap hits the fan, for once."


	7. Chapter 7

Wind whipped at the mages' hair, causing Fate's blonde twintails and Yaris's blue mane to stream out behind them. Both Enforcers were lightning mages, which went hand in glove with above-average raw flight speed.

"We have a report from last night," Aztek responded, his face on a holoscreen next to each mage. "A City Police officer on park duty saw an apparently homeless man sleeping on a park bench. He went to move him along and got zapped unconscious for his pains. The description matches Professor Montana, and the officer noticed the Circlet especially."

"I don't know whether to be upset that this proves he's as volatile as we were afraid he was or happy that he used a non-lethal spell."

"Tell me about it."

"Val," Fate spoke up, "I have Professor Montana's university personnel file from the human resources department and his citizen ID record." Another screen popped open in the air, keeping pace with the flying mages. Yaris skimmed through the record, ignoring the majority of the details of educational background, career history, published work and so on, instead focusing in on the key pertinent detail.

_Mage Ranking: B (Midchildan). Specialty: Scrying, analysis, communications. Device: none._

On its surface, he looked like someone that Yaris could take down in a heartbeat, with her superior power level, better-fitted specialties, and extensive battle experience. Fate would barely even notice that a fight was happening.

On its surface.

Things never seemed to go that smoothly when Lost Logia were involved.

"Do we have a plan when we do catch up to him?" Fate asked.

"Isolate Professor Montana from potential civilian casualties. If he's lucid, try to talk him down; if he's belligerent or threatening then try to take him fast before the situation escalates. Anything else is going to depend on circumstances. I just hope we're wrong about the spaceport. I really don't need a worst-case scenario just now."

~X X X~

_He stared with horror at the scene before him. Her grave should be there, the elegant monument to Elynn's _Janice's _life and the love borne her by her family. It should have been there, amidst the green grass of the park _beneath the flowering trees she'd loved. _He could see it there, see the peace of the burial ground shimmering like a mirage—_

—_but like a mirage, insubstantial and fleeting. It could not withstand the violence being done to it, the constant motion of people, of wheeled land vehicles, and of large and small craft _shuttles and cargo ships_ that rose and descended, tearing apart the silence and peace owed to the dead, and thrusting their milieu in upon his vision, forcing him to see the great buildings of stone and metal and glass, the roads _and runways and launch pads _of cold, harsh artificial materials._

_He screamed with rage. Was even this to be taken from him? Even the ability to mourn her loss through lasting symbols of her existence?_

_But perhaps it did not have to be so. It was, after all, the noise, the movement, the activity that made one image seem to dominate the other one, violently rending the sleep of the dead with the relentless, ceaseless chaos. The peaceful burial ground had no chance against it._

_Yet if that chaos could be stilled..._

~X X X~

The Caledon City spaceport didn't get a lot of foot traffic. The causeway's pedestrian path was basically for the use of bikers and joggers who wanted the water view for their exercise. So when the gateguard saw the figure walking towards the only gap in the security fence, swaying slightly with every step, it caught her attention.

"Hey, Jack, do you see that guy?"

"What guy?" replied Jack, who'd been keeping his eye on the traffic passing through the gate, making sure license numbers were intact and coming back as valid with the National Security Forces database.

"The one walking towards us. Can you get a camera zoom on him? Maybe he's that guy we were alerted about."

"Probably just some drunk, Callie. I'll check it out, though. Can't be too careful." He moved his hand over a touchscreen, selecting a remote viewer, targeting the walking man, and zeroing in.

Then the exercise was rendered moot when a streak of green flame shot from the man's hand and exploded, blowing the guardpost apart.

~X X X~

The screen popped open with a blazing red border indicating the alert's urgency.

"Enforcer! This is NSF Attache Fuso at Caledon City Spaceport! We're being attacked by your Professor Montana!"

This time, Yaris did not bother to moderate her language in front of Fate.

"I see it," she said after venting her feelings. Smoke and dust were rising from the island up ahead. "Have your security forces maintain order as best as possible; we have to prevent a panic." There was at least a chance Montana was flinging around magic damage, which would destroy structures but only knock people out. He'd done it to the cop in the park, after all. Start a riot, though, and you could end up with more fatalities in the stampeding crowd than from the actual attacks. "We'll be there in under a minute. Do not, repeat do _not_ engage."

"We have mages here in our security units. We could offer backup," Fuso suggested.

"Negative that, Attache," she snapped. "Your job is civilian safety. If we need backup," she added with a glance towards Fate, "then we are all seriously screwed. Yaris out." She had Star Sentry close the screen. They were almost there, now, sweeping in over the water. They could see the damage to the gatehouse and to several cans, which had in turn led to vehicles crashing into each other. There, just inside the gate and half-walking, half-staggering towards the terminal, was the figure of a man, and as they watched, he lashed out at a car with spears of green flame as it squealed out of the parking lot.

"B-rank scrying specialty my foot. Fate, do you know any binding spells?"

"Yes."

"Good. You're more powerful, so your binds should hold longer even against a full-strength target. I'll try to knock him out quickly and end this before it gets any more out of hand."

"All right. Bardiche, get ready!"

**"Yes, sir."**

"Lightning Bind!"

Snapping and crackling, bands of yellow energy seemed to form out of the air, snaring the unsuspecting Montana's wrists and ankles and pulling his limbs outwards, spread-eagled. Yaris leveled Star Sentry at the bound man.

**"Spark Cannon."**

Three orbs of blue-white energy about the size of a person's head took form orbiting Star Sentry's tip, then launched out in three separate directions before corkscrewing back to slam one another after another into Montana. His body jerked with the impacts, but instead of sagging unconscious a bright green aura seemed to suffuse him, and he wrenched himself free of Fate's binds, shattering them. He spun, facing the air-riders with an expression of pure rage.

"You would _fight_ to keep me from her?" he roared. Beneath his feet a rune shimmered into existence, but I wasn't the Midchildan rune Yaris knew, or the triangular Belkan symbol she'd sometimes seen. This one was basically octagonal in shape, with concentric diamonds within the corners. In the next instant a flaming sphere was streaking up at her. She dodged out of the way, avoiding a direct hit, but as it streaked past it detonated, expanding suddenly into a fifty-foot blast radius. Without an autoguard, since Star Sentry wasn't an Intelligent Device, she had only her Barrier Jacket to protect herself. She was blasted back, feeling the shock of it through her entire body, and grunted at the pain.

Fate wasn't having any easier a time of it; Montana pointed at her, six spears of fire took form around his arm, and launched at her in a rapid-fire stream not entirely unlike her Plasma Lancer. She dodged out of the way, but they homed in, tracking her.

**"Haken Form."**

A cartridge popped, the scythe came out, and she whipped around towards the magical firebolts, slashing through two of them with the blade and dispelling them. Yaris cast a Plasma Shock, the magical blast engulfing the two at the tail end of the chain, and Fate blocked the final pair with a Defenser barrier. The impact plainly jolted her; even though lightning mages tended to be more of the "hit hard and fast" type than the "stone-wall defense" sort it still told Yaris far too much about the potency of Montana's magic.

"No, _definitely_ not B-rank," she growled, then counterstruck. "Napalm Shot!" Three comet-like firebursts rained down on him, but he lifted his hand and raised a runic shield not unlike a Mid-style mage's Round Shield, blocking the attack. She'd been hoping he'd do that, though, and hit him with a quick-firing Pulse Laser, striking from all sides and evading the shield. He seemed to shrug it off, though, as easily as he'd done to her more powerful Spark Cannon.

_I think you're going to have to bring him down_, Yaris sent to Fate, not wanting Montana to be able to overhear their combat plans. _My attacks don't even seem to be slowing him up._ He proved her point when the rune formed beneath his feet once again and pillars of fire burst from under the ground, spearing into the sky. These, at least, didn't detonate or home in and the Enforcers were able to dodge the series of blasts, weaving their way through the columns. As the spun out of the maze, Yaris found another of the flaming orbs zipping up at her.

**"Mystic Defender."**

This time she got her barrier up in time before the spell's "proximity fuse" went off and deflected the bulk of the blast. Fate, meanwhile, took the chance to counterattack, snapping the blade off her scythe in a spinning arc.

**"Haken Saber."**

Montana lurched to the side and fell to his knees; the blade missed him by such a small fraction that the chips of the roadway it blasted up pelted the professor like shrapnel, one even drawing a thin line of blood along his cheek.

The prodigy, though, was already into her next move, Bardiche's head snapping back into his axelike Assault Form and shining golden runes taking shape not just beneath Fate's feet but also in front of Bardiche's tip.

"Plasma Smasher!"

A searingly bright beam a good four or five feet across, blasted downwards, crackling and throwing off blue sparks. Montana had no time to do anything but raise a shield and block the massively powerful assault. Yaris was hard-pressed not to just stare; even among her fellow Enforcers that kind of raw power was rare indeed. She suddenly had a feeling that Fate's absurd mage rank was actually on the _low_ end of her potential, reflecting her youth and inexperience.

Being a veteran combatant, though, Yaris did _not_ just hover around and watch but instead let fly with another Spark Cannon, pelting Montana's undefended flanks.

He was breathing heavily when the lightning cleared, wobbly as he pushed back to his feet.

_Did that do it?_

"Fools!" he screamed, immediately putting a negative to Yaris's mental question. A wave of flame exploded outward from him in an expanding hemisphere, slamming into the two Enforcers and knocking them tumbling away. On the ground, cars—thankfully abandoned by their drivers—were torn to metal scraps or sent flying, while a chunk of the spaceport fence was vaporized. The impact was too much for Yaris's Barrier Jacket to take; she actually blacked out momentarily, though thankfully for a split second only and was able to recover her flight control in time to land safely.

_Val, are you all right?_ echoed in her head.

_Yeah...mostly. Ow. How is he _doing_ this?I mean, even if the Circlet is messing with his mind and showing him how to cast Legarian combat spells, where's the power coming from? The memories stuff you thought up at least makes some sense as an extension of the Circlet's known abilities, but 'oh by the way it jacks your mage rank from average to ungodly' just doesn't fly!_

_I'll have Bardiche try to scan him, though it's not really his main function._

_Okay. Meanwhile, I'll try to provide some cover for you._

Yaris glanced down at herself. She wasn't exactly in great shape; the jacket, pants, and cape of her Barrier Jacket all featured various rips and tears and she'd lost her hat. Still, she'd had lots worse in her day, and an Enforcer's job was never done while she was still alive and conscious. She clenched her hands on Star Sentry's shaft, the blue-white spell rune forming under her feet.

"Plasma Rain!"

Surge after surge of magic blasted upward from the rune, arcing into the sky, then turning and showering down, dozens of crackling bolts falling around Montana's location like the spell's name implied. Although one of her most powerful and taxing spells in terms of sheer magical output, it wasn't actually a good weapon to use against a single enemy since it didn't have any way to insure he'd be hit even once.

As a distraction to keep him away from Fate, though, she figured it would work just fine.

Like she hoped he would, he turtled, calling up a domelike barrier and hiding out under it as plasma blasts rained down around him, pelting the area for a good twenty seconds or so. Yaris panted for breath; the spell had taken a lot out of her.

"I've got it!" Fate yelped aloud. She'd descended until she landed no more than five feet from Yaris.

"Get away!" her senior exclaimed. "We're vulnerable to area-effect spells this—"

It was too late for warnings, though; two more fireballs were streaking towards them.

**"Defenser Plus,"** Bardiche announced, and a shimmering dome covered them both just in time to stop the explosion.

"I'm sorry; I just thought you might need a little extra cover to regain strength. Anyway, I think I know what's happening. Professor Montana is casting the Legarian magic at the levels the Circlet's memories recall from Thessidor's life. It's making him overtax the limits his own mind would otherwise place on his Linker Core."

They sprang into the air, flying in opposite directions as another discharge of flame-spears hammered into the ground where they'd been standing.

_So, what? It's like a guy on drugs or insane who acts super-strong because he constantly uses his muscles to maximal effort, not knowing he's hurting himself doing it?_

Fate sprayed several low-power, unguided blasts of shooting magic back towards Montana, more to keep him confused than anything.

_That's right!_

_Damn._

Yaris had actually heard that some magical researchers were trying to apply that phenomenon to a Linker Core intentionally, to allow a short time—a spell or two, a few seconds of close combat—where a user could drastically increase their abilities. The downside was that, similar to the physical version, the effect would overtax the mage's Linker Core, inflicting injury, or even permanent damage. Death was a real possibility.

_So if this battle goes on much longer...there's no way he can keep up. Even if we beat down his defenses so we can capture him..._

_It'll probably kill him,_ Yaris finished.

_No!_ Fate yelped. _This isn't his fault! We can't let him die! _She was all but screaming in Yaris's head, making Val wonder what part of the girl's own past was speaking to her now.

_We can't let him hurt anyone else, either, and the longer it goes on, the more likely that is to happen. _It might have already happened, if there'd been injured people in the cars wrecked by the big area-effect blast. _They have to be protected._

Trying to debate a plan and dodge pyrotechnics wasn't easy, and Yaris had to use Mystic Defender again to stave off another explosive fireball.

_I know, but..._

_If we can get the Circlet off him—and if the effects aren't permanent—then there might be a chance. But he's not exactly going to _let_ us do that, and he's way too far gone for talking._

_So if we force it off him, that'll just overload his Linker Core anyway in fighting off our magic?_

_Yeah, he...no, wait!_

_Val?_

_Your Haken Saber, earlier. When it missed, it smashed up fragments of pavement and one cut his cheek. His equivalent of a Barrier Jacket's shrugged off lots worse things than a tiny piece of rock._

_Then...it doesn't stop purely physical attacks? At all?_

_I don't think so. If we can get close enough, I think we can just grab the Circlet and yank it off his head!_

"Bardiche—Sonic Form!" Fate cried out.

**"Yes, sir."**

Light swirled around her, and her jacket, skirt, and cape vanished, leaving her wearing boots, gloves, and something not unlike a one-piece bathing suit.

_Fate, what the—if you get hit, an attack of this strength will go through that Barrier Jacket like it wasn't even there!_

_Everybody says that!_ she laughed mentally, then demonstrated why that wasn't that big a risk by dodging the next spray of firebolts directed at her. Her speed was incredible; Yaris could barely believe it. Fate's "Sonic Form" must have rechanneled much of her Barrier Jacket's defensive potential into increasing her speed instead.

_All right. I'll distract him, and you get in close and grab the Circlet!_

Yaris spun and dove, charging directly towards Montana with Star Sentry outthrust like a spear.

**"Thunder Blow,"** the Storage Device intoned, and a blast of blue-white lightning leapt from its tip to slam into Montana's torso. He wheeled towards Yaris, letting his homing missiles slam into the ground instead of continuing to track Fate.

"Yeah, got your attention now, don't I—urk!"

Apparently, the Legarians knew about binding spells, too. This one had burst from the ground like the pillars of fire earlier, except it was only a single one that wrapped around her like the coils of a flaming serpent that squeezed tighter and tighter, its magic surging into her Barrier Jacket and tearing its defenses apart. She screamed, unable to resist the searing pain.

_Val!_

_Get...him!_

With Montana's entire attention on crushing or burning the life out of Yaris—or maybe just knocking her out with magic damage so she wouldn't actually suffer permanent injury until her unprotected, unconscious body dropped the sixty or so feet to the pavement—Fate shot into action, arrowing down from her position.

Only, not at Montana.

He reared back and hurled another fireball at Yaris, apparently not content with destroying her with the attack binds.

**"Zanber Form."**

A cartridge loaded in Bardiche and the axe changed form again, becoming the hilt of a golden-energy zweihander with a blade that was taller and probably wider than Fate herself. In Sonic Form, she appeared in front of Yaris in an instant and severed the bindings with one sweep of the blade.

The fireball detonated a second later. Yaris's Barrier Jacket was so far gone that she could actually feel the heat, even through the flickering shield she'd gotten up just in time to keep the blast off Fate's back.

"Pay attention!" Yaris snapped. "You're too young to sacrifice yourself saving me."

They shot apart in opposite directions as the next attack sailed between them.

"Plasma Shock!"

Yaris aimed to miss, not wanting to put more strain on Montana's defenses and hence his Linker Core, instead using the bright flash of the area-effect attack to distract him. It worked far better than it should have, actually staggering the professor and making him clutch his head. It had to be the effect the Circlet was having on his perceptions, but by that point all Yaris cared about was that it gave Fate the time to fly in like a golden-black streak, close the fingers of her gauntleted left hand around the emerald stone that was the circlet's centerpiece, and pull a high-G turn into a near-vertical, ripping the Lost Logia off Montana's head.

The professor's eyes rolled up in his skull, and he fell to the roadway in a dead faint.

"Lucky bastard," Yaris muttered with more than a little envy. Her whole body felt like a bruise, and now that the fight was over she was feeling it. _Hopefully there's nobody that needs emergency-services healing magic more than I do!_

As soon as her feet touched the ground, she let her Barrier Jacket drop, resuming her Enforcer uniform. She opened up communications links to Aztek and to Fuso.

"Situation is resolved. Fuso, you can get emergency services and medical personnel ready." Luckily, the spaceport would have trained personnel and the proper equipment immediately available due to the need to be prepared for crashes.

"Is there anything else we can get you?" Aztek asked.

"Yeah. Fetch me a lounge chair, my husband to give me a foot-rub, and a double of the stiffest drink you make on this world." She looked up at where Fate was flying in towards her. "Babysitting is damned tough work!"


	8. Epilogue

Valentine Yaris tapped her foot impatiently.

The vagaries of interdimensional transit had never been her favorite part of travel. Her husband Marc was a "numbers guy," not unnaturally for a man who dealt in the world of business law, of equity stakes and debt-asset ratios and return on investments and other financial esoterica. He could sit down with a travel schedule and plan out which combination of teleports and ship travel would take a person from World A to World B in the shortest possible time within twenty minutes, half an hour at the most.

Yaris just knew that if she wasn't on board the _Fortune_ when it left, she'd be on Andorel for another eleven days before a window opened up to transport back home to Mid.

It had been four days already since the capture of Blake Montana. The pending charges were going to be interesting. On the one hand, his motive for stealing the Circlet had been essentially what the Enforcers had suspected, a desperate attempt to resurrect the memories of his late wife. Ironically enough, it seemed that Thessidor, too, had lost his own wife a few months before he created the Circlet, having built it for virtually the same reason as Montana had wanted to use it. Quite possibly it was this sympathy of emotion that had led to Thessidor's feelings being unlocked within the Circlet's record, fueling the steady blending of perception and memory that had engulfed Montana. By the end, he'd barely been able to tell reality from illusion, present from past. He certainly hadn't intended any violent acts.

On the other hand...unintended consequences were pretty much inevitable when dealing with Lost Logia. That was why the Bureau had laws restricting their use. Like yelling "fire" in a crowded building, while the act itself might be harmless, the consequences were sufficiently predictable that banning the act was the only sensible course.

Throw in acute grief and clinical depression, and the fact that by the time the Enforcers had arrived to arrest him at the spaceport he'd been in no mental state to acknowledge them let alone choose to surrender into custody, and the matter looked more and more like a mess for the attorneys to sort out.

"I'm sorry I'm late, Val!" Fate called, hurrying up to her. "They stopped me at the exit screening because the guards wanted to thank us for saving everybody." Yaris had both of their suitcases as well as a large shoulder bag with souvenirs; Fate had only a single piece of luggage: the Circlet of Thessidor itself. Yaris grinned at her.

"And now you know why I had you carry the Lost Logia and hence get dragged through the extra security checks."

"I thought you were just being nice to take the bags!"

"One of the perks of being the senior operative is getting to save the cushy jobs for myself. Just think, in another five or six years it'll be your turn to foist off the public relations problems on _your_ aide."

Shyly, Fate returned her grin.

"So you don't like dealing with people after a case?"

"No way. If the case was a failure, then they all want your head. And if it was a success like this one, then all the gratitude and stuff is completely embarrassing. Of course, then there are the ones who get mad at you either way, like the protestors at the museum yesterday who were angry about the TSAB taking away a piece of Andorelan heritage."

"Don't they understand that it's dangerous, and that until our researchers can make sure it can be used safely it shouldn't be left where this incident could be repeated? We were really lucky there was just some property damage and only three people injured enough to need more than on-scene first aid!" Those people hadn't been hurt by Montana's magic directly but by debris and shrapnel. One man had been in critical condition when they got him out of the crumpled wreck of his car, but the emergency medical team had gotten him stabilized and to the hospital in time to save him.

"Well, it's like Dr. Accord said. Passionate ideals and extremism are pretty standard for the university years."

"I wonder if I'll be like that when I'm their age."

"I doubt it. By that time you'll have been a serving Bureau clerk for eight to ten years. It's hard to hide in an ivory tower when you've been out in the real world for half your life. And as for passionate ideals, well..." She let go of one of the suitcase handles so she could reach out and ruffle Fate's hair. "You've got those now, don't you?"

Fate blushed hotly, her eyes dropping, and Yaris couldn't help but smile.

"I just hope that I can get better at investigations," Fate said. "I nearly derailed the entire case that first time, and I didn't even notice about Professor Montana's defenses and that was in combat, where I supposedly know what I'm doing."

"You had some pretty good ideas that helped us identify him, though, and let us start looking _before_ he started blowing up stuff. And don't forget that without you there's no way we could have stopped him without anyone getting killed. That's pretty good for your first official job." Yaris tugged on one of Fate's pink ribbons. "Looks like the luck came through for you."

Fate's blush hadn't gone away, but it was renewed even more brightly than before.

"Besides, at least you're trying to learn. That's more than I see from a lot of hotshot rookies. Heck,, even I learned a few things on this case and I've been doing this for over a decade."

"Really? What did you learn?"

"Well, for one thing, that babysitting jobs don't _all_ have to suck."

~X X X~

_A/N: As is so often the case, I'd like to thank everyone at the AnimeSuki Nanoha Fanfiction Thread for being the guinea pigs for my draft chapters of this story and for all their helpful suggestions and beta-reading. Seriously, without their useful input, chapters 5 and 6 would have contained a number of serious clunkers and distractions, so thanks a lot!_

~X X X~

**Vivio's Magical Omake Theater!**

"So whattya think, Vivio? Is she your type?"

Vivio and Corona both blinked at their dark-haired friend.

"Um...what are you talking about, Rio?"

"Einhart!"

"Is she my type of what?"

"Girlfriend! Geez, Vivio, I've seen your grades; you're supposed to be smarter than this!"

"Well...I'm not really sure I'm ready to start thinking about girlfriends yet..."

Rio sighed. "Bor-ing!"

"...but if I did, I don't think it would be Ein."

"Why not?" Corona asked.

"Well...she's shy and has trouble expressing her feelings...and she gets into fights with my friends and me but not for bad reasons...and she's haunted by the influence of someone else's memories that she carries around in her mind."

Helpfully, Sacred Heart floated over and pulled his ears down so he looked like a lop-eared bunny.

"Thanks, Cris! And there's the way she wears her hair in twintails, too. I mean, I'm not really sure what my 'type' is or even if it's girls or boys just yet, but...going out with Ein would be just like dating Fate-mama!"


End file.
